In this updated version of her landmark book Learning to Listen, Learning to Teach, celebrated adult educator Jane Vella revisits her twelve principles of dialogue education with a new theoretical perspective gleaned from the discipline of quantum physics. Vella sees the path to learning as a holistic, integrated, spiritual, and energetic process. She uses engaging, personal stories of her work in a variety of adult learning settings, in different countries and with different educational purposes, to show readers how to utilize the twelve principles in their own practice with any type of adult learner, anywhere. New material includes: the latest research on learning tasks; updated ways to do needs assessment; and new insights from the field of quantum physics applied to adult teaching and learning.

Table of Contents

Foreword to the 1994 Edition (Malcolm S. Knowles). Preface to the Revised Edition 2002. The Author. Part One: A Process That Works and Why. 1. Twelve Principles for Effective Adult Learning. 2. Quantum Thinking and Dialogue Education. 3. How the Principles Inform Course Design:Two Examples. Part Two: The Principles in Practice:Across Cultures and Around the World. 4. Learning Needs and Resources Assessment:Taking the First Step in Dialogue. 5. Safety: Creating a Safe Environment for Learning. 6. Sound Relationships: Using the Power ofFriendship. 7. Sequence and Reinforcement: Supporting TheirLearning. 8. Praxis: Turning Practice into Action andReflection. 9. Learners as Decision Makers: Harnessing thePower of Self Through Respect. 10. Learning with Ideas, Feelings, and Actions:Using the Whole Person. 11. Immediacy: Teaching What Is Really Useful toLearners. 12. Assuming New Roles for Dialogue: Embracingthe Death of the Professor. 13. Teamwork: Celebrating Learning Together. 14. Engagement: Learning Actively. 15. Accountability: Knowing How They KnowThey Know. Part Three: Becoming an EffectiveTeacher of Adults16. Reviewing the Twelve Principles and QuantumThinking. 17. How Do You Know You Know? Supposing andProposing. Appendix: Ways of Doing Needs Assessment. References. Index.

About the Author

Jane Vella the founder of Global Learning Partners, Inc. is an adjunct professor at the School of Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She has designed and led community education and staff development programs in more than forty countries around the world. She is currently retired and living in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she continues her research on adult learning.