After recreation of independence Lithuania happened to suffer the new quality of inner and outer economical, political and cultural relationships. The post-communist society has splintered into society of well-off and poor. The problem of certain groups of people who feel inferior members of society or separated, arises. Putting into life the concept of life-long learning encourages to search for the way how to integrate socially separated people into society so they could take an active position there. Today we live in the society of knowledge which becomes also the society of learning. It means that such a society has its members learning all through the life. The knowledge society requires much more not only from the policy of education but also from each of us. Today it is not enough for a person to enquire his or her qualification once. Today’s person has to have an ability to adapt to the changing world. Consequently, the essence of the changing society is constant changing and learning of its members. The first task on the way to this purpose is to make a research of society’s educational needs. The society’s educational needs (necessity for changing)are: to educate themselves, widen their intellectual potential and abilities adapting themselves to challenges of today’s life. When this is obvious and the present situation is assessed the measures for further activities can be noted. Problem of the research. The scientific problem of the present research is... [to full text]

Despite the steady growth of coaching science over the last two decades, research on coaches of persons with disabilities is scarce. This study examined how an adaptive sailing coach learned through and from experience using a single case study methodology. Jarvis’s (2009) lifelong learning approach and Gilbert and Trudel’s (2001) reflective conversation model framed the thematic analysis. The findings revealed that the coach, Jenny, was exposed to collaborative environments that optimized her learning process. Social interactions with a number of people (e.g., mentors, colleagues, and athletes) possessing different types of expertise made major contributions to Jenny becoming a coach. As time progressed and Jenny was exposed to a mixture of challenges and learning situations, she advanced from recreational Para-swimming instructor to developmental adaptive sailing coach. This study informs future research in disability sport coaching.

Policy goals for lifelong learning prioritise a need to motivate people to participate in purposeful learning and to become autonomous lifelong learners. As the latest of a series of initiatives in the vocational curriculum, Advanced GNVQs adopted a controversial assessment model to achieve these aims. The implementation of the model in the further education (FE) sector has taken place at a time of protracted restructuring in colleges. This study evaluates the effects of Advanced level GNVQ policy on students' autonomy and motivation. It focuses on the 'policy trajectory' created by the interplay between macro, meso and micro-level factors. The research developed and tested a theoretical typology to connect types of motivation and autonomy to formative assessment practices through three layers of analysis: (a) the structural and ideological context of policy for lifelong learning; (b) the particular policy debates and processes that surrounded the GNVQ assessment model and (c) the social processes of assessment within two GNVQ courses in two FE colleges. By combining these three layers, the thesis set out to relate to a tradition of policy scholarship and to contribute to the sociological study of the political, cultural, social and pedagogic roles that assessment systems play in the UK. The study draws upon a wide range of data collection techniques, including interviews with policy-makers, teachers and students, participant observation in colleges, documentary analysis and questionnaires. It adopts multiple perspectives for analysing data to raise issuesa bout assessmenpt olicy and practice in four broad areas.F irst, policy development for GNVQs shows that extreme ad hocery, chaos and controversy continue to beset assessment policy in the UK, particularly over what 'standards' of assessment mean. This, together with the speed of development, lack of funding and turf wars between different constituencies has created an 'assessment regime' where new forms of regulation, pedagogy and organisational practices shape meanings associated with 'autonomy' and 'motivation'. Second, this regime affects teachers' and students' values and beliefs about vocational education and their formative assessmenpt ractices. The study argues that a combination of mechanisms for regulating teachers' assessmenpt ractices, resource pressuresa nd student expectations about acceptable engagement with learning create and shape students' 'assessment careers'. In this respect, the study contributes evidence to a growing body of work on the social and cultural processes and effects of assessment and to research which explores learners' identities and 'learning careers'. Third, the study highlights barriers to improving formative assessmentin postcompulsory education but offers recommendations to various interested constituencies that might contribute to this goal. Last, the study offers tentative suggestionsa bout how current assessmenpt olicy and pedagogy' might relate to specific ideological trends associated with 'risk consciousness'.

Abstract: My inquiry, involving participant-observation and self-study, explores the stories of four older women through verbal and visual narratives. Showing how two specific types of visual narratives—sandpictures and collages—stimulate experiential story-telling and promote understanding about life experiences, I also illustrate how engagement with images extends learning and meaning-making. Effective in carrying life stories and integrating experience, the visual narratives also reveal archetypal imagery that is sustained and sustaining. Considering how visual narratives may be understood independently, I describe multiple strategies that worked for me for entering deeply into the images. I also elaborate on the relationship of visual narratives to accompanying verbal narratives, describing how tacit knowing may evolve. Through this process, I offer a framework for a curricular approach to visual narratives that involves feeling and seeing aesthetically and associatively and that provides a space for learners to express their individual stories and make meaning of significant life events. Salient narrative themes include confrontation with life-death issues, the experience of “creating a new life,” an avid early interest in books and learning, and a vital connection to the natural world. New professions after mid-life, creative expression, and volunteerism provide fulfillment and challenge as life changes promote attempts to marry relationships with self and others to work and service. My therapy practice room was the setting for five sessions, including an introduction, three experiential sandplay sessions, and a conclusion. Data derive from transcripts from free-flowing conversations, written narratives, photographs of sandpictures, and field notes written throughout the various phases of my doctoral process. This study of older women, with its emphasis on lifelong learning, visual narratives, and development of tacit knowing, will contribute to the field of narrative inquiry already strongly grounded in verbal narrative and teacher education/development. It may also promote in-depth investigations of male learners at a life stage of making meaning of, and integrating, their life experiences. New inquirers may note what I did and how it worked for me, and find their unique ways of extending the study of visual narratives while venturing into the broad field of diverse narrative forms.

This project aimed to demonstrate that a commitment by a community to improve access to lifelong learning opportunities as a Learning City enhances the quality of life of its citizens and improves its economic conditions through a more creative, stable and adaptable community. In May 2000, the newly elected Labor Government in Victoria launched the Victorian 'Learning Towns' Program. Based on a United Kingdom (UK) model that had been developing since 1995 with demonstrable success, the nine (and later, ten) rural and regional cities and towns in the Victorian pilot program were the first in Australia to receive funding to support lifelong learning as an approach towards achieving sustainable economic development and social inclusiveness. This research focused on the practice and progress of SmartGeelong - The Leaming City, one of the pilot programs. It presented an opportunity to evaluate the economic and social development of a community that has declared itself a Learning City by posing the following research questions: 1. What are the key characteristics of a Leaming City and what determines these? 2. What are the value added outcomes? How can the depth and breadth of participation be entrenched? 3. What are the indicators of success and effectiveness in a Leaming City? Having made this observation however, the capacity for the cultural change in an ACE driven learning community to be sustainable is likely to be limited unless it engages local government in meaningful ways to ensure that those changes are long term. Currently, the contribution by local government to learning communities in Australia is varied and can be erratic. The experience in the UK supports the observation in Australian learning communities that where there is a commitment that is understood by local government, it is possible to improve social inclusion and local economic performance. This research has concluded that its most significant finding is the effectiveness of the neutral space that a concept such as the Leaming City provides. By providing a conceptual space that is non threatening, non competitive and belongs to the whole community rather than any one organisation, it is possible to develop cross sectoral partnerships among organisations that may be competitors in other environments, that add value to communities, overcome barriers and develop creative responses that address local issues and build community capacity. The research describes the experience of building a learning community, of lessons learned and insights gained. Through example, it provides a foundation for other communities that may be interested in pursuing this concept. However, while it is possible to develop a learning community through the commitment and initiative of local leaders, it is made more difficult in the absence of a national policy commitment to lifelong learning. Despite this, the research concludes that through the careful development and nurturing of all partners, the process of developing a learning community is effective, sustainable and makes a positive impact.

This study is situated within the everyday practice of nurses around the world, engaged in discourse with colleagues through listserv discussion forums, and immersed in Schon's swampy lowlands of important problems. Taking computer-mediated communications (CMC) to be an integral part of nursing informatics, the study begins by examining the literatures on CMC and nurses' reflection on and in practice. The study is congruent with emerging mixed method research approaches within both nursing and the study of CMC, and comprises an electronic ethnography, coupled with the development of a model of reflection within nursing listerv discussions. Using a corpus of discussion threads from the NURSENET list, together with questionnaires,interviews and Virtual Focus Group discussions, all conducted by CMC over a six-year period, a tapestry ofa virtual community, united through discussion of shared practice issues, emerges. The narratives of everyday discussions dispel some of the urban myths of CMC and show the possibility of real social engagement. A model of reflection derived from Kim's phases of critical reflective inquiry and Johns'framework for reflection on action is used to examine a pilot sample of NURSE NET discussion threads. This pilot version of the model is shown to be insufficient to describe the reality of reflective discussion in this forum, and a revised model is developed, essentially inductively, from the data. This new model, tested against a larger sample of discussion threads, demonstrates a qualitatively different form of reflection from that encountered offline. The online reflection is a group, as opposed to an individual, process, is action-oriented, and shows a form of 'online reflection around action' as nurses engage in ongoing practice situations, as well as post hoc reflection on-action. It also provides evidence of nurses using the reflective discussions to change practice, and so illustrates reflection akin to that envisaged by Kemmis.

Despite the steady growth of coaching science over the last two decades, research on coaches of persons with disabilities is scarce. This study examined how an adaptive sailing coach learned through and from experience using a single case study methodology. Jarvis’s (2009) lifelong learning approach and Gilbert and Trudel’s (2001) reflective conversation model framed the thematic analysis. The findings revealed that the coach, Jenny, was exposed to collaborative environments that optimized her learning process. Social interactions with a number of people (e.g., mentors, colleagues, and athletes) possessing different types of expertise made major contributions to Jenny becoming a coach. As time progressed and Jenny was exposed to a mixture of challenges and learning situations, she advanced from recreational Para-swimming instructor to developmental adaptive sailing coach. This study informs future research in disability sport coaching.

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No description available.

The research was conducted by stratified random sampling. A structural questionnaire on the basis of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) is designed as study instrument for data collection in this research aimed to study the influential factors on the lifelong learning (LLL) behavioral intention of nursing staff and the satisfaction with LLL passport. Seven hundreds and fifty questionnaires were distributed and 451 copies returned, which made up 60.13% of returning rate. Among the returned questionnaires, 433 were effective samples and returning rate of returning samples was 57.73%. Collected data were computed by SPSS/PC10.0. Computing results shown that average age of subjects was 30.7 and average working seniority of them was 9 years. Research results indicated that there was a positive attitude (with 70.44% of support) towards LLL behavioral intention and 65.75% of overall satisfaction of the implementation of LLL passport. Results also found that, among all of the factors, the participants¡¦ age, working seniority, number of children, job position, educational background, attitude towards LLL, perceived behavioral control, and subjective norm of environmental support including support from administrators, overcoming obstacles from family, support from colleagues and families, and backup from working shift table and manpower positively correlated with their LLL behavioral intention(p<.01). Nevertheless, attribute of working unit was found to have negative correlation with LLL behavioral intention(p<.01). While participants¡¦ job position, educational background, attitude towards LLL, perceived behavioral control, and subjective norm of environmental support consisting of support from nursing unit and administrators, overcoming obstacles from family, and support from colleagues and families indicated positive correlations with satisfaction with LLL passport(p<.01), attribute of working unit revealed negative correlation(p<.01). The above results have verified and echoed Ajzen¡¦s (1985) Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). The theory was to evaluate one¡¦s behavioral intention based on one¡¦s attitude, perceived behavioral control, and subjective norm. In this study, the perceived behavioral control has the highest influence (84.19%). In addition, there was a positive correlation between nursing staff¡¦s LLL behavioral intention and their satisfaction with LLL passport. Furthermore, by using regression analysis, the results shown that factors such as ¡§support from colleagues and families¡¨, ¡§support from nursing unit and administrators¡¨, and ¡§backup from working shift table and manpower¡¨ could be used as predictors to LLL internal behavioral intention and satisfaction with LLL passport. The overall prediction variance of these three factors reached 34% and ¡§support from colleagues and families¡¨ was the highest (29.5%) among all. In conclusion, except factor of personal characteristics, if working shift and manpower factors could be overcome when nursing staffs are participating in LLL activities, and meanwhile with support of colleagues, families, and administrators, the LLL behavioral intention and satisfaction with LLL passport could be enhanced. The researcher suggested that the results of this study could be used by pertinent units and nursing administrators to build a sound human resources system, establish a learning organization, propel incessant professional development, and help promote nursing staff¡¦s professional accomplishments and competition.