General Information

General Admission Requirements

Graduate Advisement

Program Requirements

Courses & Descriptions

Program Highlights

Practicum

Program Delivery

Financial Aid

Description of Courses for the Master of Arts in Adult Education at WKU

ADED 510 – Introduction to Adult Education

Catalog course listing: Survey of principles, models and techniques of adult education.  Topics will include history, philosophies, and theories of education of adults.

           The purpose of this course is to provide an overview of the field of adult education, its definition, a brief history, some of its philosophies and models, and some methods commonly used to educate adults.  This course will help introduce adult educators to some of the common knowledge found in the field of adult education.

ADED 520 – Methods for Teaching Adults

Catalog course listing:  Adult educational theories, models, and approaches and their use in practice.

This course has been developed to provide instructors of adults methodology and practices used to educate adults. Students will learn various approaches to establishing an educational setting, providing materials and instruction to adults, and assessing their outcomes.  As adult educators begin the process of learning how to teach adults, they will need to know the various models of teaching adults.  Students of this course will learn factors that influence the way adults learn, such as the physical, emotional, and learning environment.  Emphasis will be placed on how to organize and conduct a learning experience for adults.

ADED 530 – Program Development for Adults

Catalog course listing:  Program planning and development for adults in technical schools, colleges, workplace, and lifelong learning endeavors.  Includes methods for designing, implementing, and evaluating programs and their objectives.This course has been developed to provide instructors of adults knowledge of methods for establishing needs for programs, developing objectives, designing functional programs and then evaluating their effectiveness.  As adult educators seek to develop programs, there are several approaches and techniques to determining the potential participant’s needs, providing for those needs, and evaluating how well those needs were met.  The purpose of this course will be to cover a variety of those approaches and engage students in the process of program planning and evaluation.

ADED 540  - History and Philosophy of Adult Education

Catalog course listing: 

Philosophy and history of adult education in the United States. Covers history of adult education from the colonial period to today.  Includes major philosophies that guide adult education.  This proposed course has been developed to provide instructors of adults the history of the development and growth of adult education in the United States as well as the philosophies that have helped guide practice in adult education.   “Adult Education: Evolution and Achievements in a Developing Field of Study” by Peters, Jarvis, and Associates (1991) recommends that all adult education graduate programs at the master’s level provide a course of the historical and philosophical background of the field.

ADED 595 – Readings or Research in Adult Education

Catalog course listing:  Individual readings or research.  Arrangements must be made before enrolling. This course has been developed to help those students who have specific interests concentrate on following those interests by providing a place for them to pursue individualized projects.  These projects can be applied projects or research projects.  The student and professor will jointly plan the direction and scheduling of such projects.

ADED 597 - Directed Study in Adult Education

Catalog Course listing: Directed study related to best practices in adult education.  Requires completion of research or applied project on approved topic.

ADED 598 – Adult Education Seminar

 Catalog course listing: Issues in the field of Adult Education.  Topics will vary with faculty and student interest. This course has been developed to provide faculty the flexibility to provide special topics of interest to faculty and students. These topics would include areas of adult education that are of interest to faculty and students but do not warrant the development of a permanent course.

ADED 611 - Adult Development and Learning

 Catalog course listing:  Psychological factors affecting adult development, learning, and motivation.  Emphasis on how diverse academic career/experiential backgrounds and objectives affect classroom environments, teaching strategies, and testing and evaluation.  The course was developed:  a) to help prepare future community practitioners for teaching traditional and non-traditional students through the study of student characteristics, development, interests, and motivation; b) to help students apply appropriate learning models and strategies, using materials and texts from their respective discipline; c) to help future faculty understand how different cultures and backgrounds affect learning; d) to understand the models of adult development