ABSTRACT
Administrator by day, adjunct faculty by night, the author originally started teaching when she was an admissions counselor enrolling adult students who were returning to college. While the orientation class is only one of several courses that she has taught, it remains one of her favorites. She enjoys this class immensely and has continued to introduce and teach some version of it at several different institutions. During the Institute she discovered the assignment by Linda Christensen titled "Where I'm From: Inviting Students' Lives into the Classroom". Malcolm Knowles summed up the state of adult learning in 1973 when he titled his book The Adult Learner: A Neglected Species. While adult students have moved further up the higher education ladder, it is still appropriate to examine the state of adult learning theory in the same context as other ideas of cultural significance. Knowles explains that the first adult learner characteristic of andragogy is tied to self-concept.
