ABSTRACT
We teach in a self-directed Master of Adult Education Program that has been offered by distance for more than 30 years. The primary program goal is that students will enhance their ability to do reflective practice. As part of the degree requirements, students must attend a 3week residential Orientation session and design their own self-directed learning program, which they then complete at a distance. Teresa MacNeil, the founding chair of this department, shortly after the inception of a Department of Adult Education in 1970, took the initiative to create a master’s program for adult education practitioners, which was not course-driven but rather based on learners’ expressed needs. For the three of us, our entry into teaching in this program was staggered over a 3 -year period (Leona in 1996, Allan in 1997, Dorothy in 1998). We each begpn teaching here while the program was in a time of transition from a teaching staff of two or three that had been in place for many years. As new faculty members, we were not convinced that the existing texts, assignments, and teaching practices supported the goal of reflective practice-an emeigent and significant theme in our field in the past decade. Nor were we convinced that our previous classroom-based teaching and learning experiences had prepared us for this semi-structured and practice-based program. In an effort to ensure that we were focused on reflective practice, in 1998 the three faculty members present began to revise the curriculum, build a collaborative teaching team, work deliberately on improving teaching skills, and foster interfaculty learning and research. Reflective practice was both the goal and the methodology of our collaborative inquiry. The participants in our inquiry were currently enrolled students, recent graduates, and our selves.
