A Comparison of Pedagogical Approaches to Teaching Graduate Students in Educational Administration.

To evaluate teaching activities designed to increase educational administration graduate students' ability to reflect on their learning, make connections between that learning and their schools, and to translate that learning to job effectiveness, students were surveyed over a period of three years to determine the value, enjoyment, and long-term influences of these activities. The students reported experiencing more value from long-term influences of these activities. The students reported experiencing more value than enjoyment from all the activities and both more value and enjoyment from electives than from core subjects. Taking exams, writing papers, and reading were viewed as neither valuable nor enjoyable. Resume writing and mock job interviews, more directly related to future employment, were highly rated while activities requiring interaction with peers received the lowest value ratings. This study has implications for revitalizing instruction for adult learners.

Thirty years ago, in Freedom to Learn (1969), Carl Rogers challenged some educational policies and assumptions on which programs of graduate education appeared to be based. Some were (a) that students cannot be trusted to pursue their own scientific and professional learning, (b) that what is presented in the lecture is what the student learns, (c) that knowledge is the accumulation of brick upon brick of content and information, and (d) that creative scientists develop from passive learners. Rogers pointed to the fallacies of such beliefs and advocated developing each student's creativity, ability to discover new relations, to reformulate or systematize known facts, and devise new techniques and approaches to solving problems. Today, the quest for more effective methods of teaching continues. In 1996, the National Council of Professors of Educational Administration devoted their entire conference to revitalizing instruction in the preparation of school leaders. Talk at this conference centered on such issues as engaging in reflective and responsive

strategies, problem based learning, moving instruction beyond professors' and students' comfort zones, and bridging the gulf between the world of the school and the world outside (Burdin & Yoon, 1996).

After reviewing our program for preparing administrators at Texas A&M University-Commerce, we determined to dedicate ourselves to finding methods that would increase educational administration graduate students' ability to reflect on their learning, to make connections between that learning and their schools, to translate that learning to on-the-job effectiveness, and to experience a real feeling of professional growth. Reported here is some background literature that reinforces and frames our understanding of adult learning and some specific data we collected from students about the value, enjoyment, and long-term influences of these activities for them. Finally, we close with our own learnings about teaching graduate students and our plans for implementing what we have learned.

Background

Several concepts bear consideration when developing a curriculum for adults learners. First, learning experiences must be chosen with care. As early as the 1940's, Tyler recognized that essentially "learning takes place through the experiences which the learner has: that is, through the reactions he makes to the environment in which he is placed" (1949, p. 63). Bennis (1994) extended the value of experiences to the training of leaders. "Leaders are made at least as much by their experiences and their understanding and application of their experiences as by any skills" (p. 74). In regard to adult learners in general, Knowles (1980) pointed out that they have accumulated a "growing reservoir of experience that becomes an increasingly rich resource for learning" (p. 44). For training future administrators, it was this rich resource of experiences in schools that provided the foundation for much of what we taught.

Second, adults have some learning characteristics that influence curriculum choices. Knowles (1980) suggested that adult's self-concepts move from one of being a dependent personality toward being a self-directed human being, that their readiness to learn becomes oriented increasingly to the developmental tasks of their social (and professional) roles, and that their time perspective changes from one of postponed application to immediacy of application, which shifts their orientation from one of subject-centeredness to one of performance centeredness. Additionally, adult learners find peer learning an essential ingredient for growth. Students in administrative preparation programs exhibit the typical traits of adult learners. They are adults who have personally elected to enter a new profession, one toward which they are inclined as administration closely relates to their current careers in teaching. For these learners, opportunities exist for immediate application of some administrative skills and for making meaningful connections between such material and their real-life situations. As professors, we tried to take advantage of the opportunity for immediate application by requiring students to make continuous connections between class material and their daily experiences in school.

For training school leaders, characteristics of adult learners must guide the planning of curriculum activities in addition to other factors that directly influence learning. For example, Henson (1995) recognizes the need for connecting new learning to old. "Throughout the twentieth century, connectionist psychologists have insisted that when learning occurs, it occurs in steps, each part building on simpler content learned earlier. Constructivists agree that each part of the content should be tied to prior learning" (p. 172). This perspective is used to support the notion of a spiral curriculum which takes connectionism into account by returning periodically to concepts at a later time, when more knowledge, maturity, and understanding have been gained by the learner and by allowing the concepts to be expanded upon at this later time. "For constructivists, knowledge refers to the internal mental constructions of the individual" (Smith, 1995, p. 23). These internal constructions regarding education gleaned from their teaching experiences are what graduate students bring to their classes and provide one half of the link to new learning. By repeatedly connecting what students already know with what they need to learn in order to have successful experiences in the future as administrators, professors provide the other half of the link. But there are other factors to consider as well.

Joyce and Showers (1987) maintain that, to ensure learning that will translate into on-the-job-effectiveness, students must be engaged in their work. There is power in direct instruction; for example, through lecturing, it provides the professor an assurance that the material which should be covered is attended to, yet there is a growing concern regarding the efficacy of direct instruction with regard to the learning of higher-level cognitive skills such as problem-solving (Slavin, Karweit, and Madden, 1989). Therefore, while we strove to ensure that our curriculum was built on understandings already gained by the learners, we also designed activities that maximized techniques to directly involve the students in the learning itself.

A third factor to consider in constructing learning activities for adult learners is the environment in which instruction occurs. Williams (1996) suggests that "when autonomous adults are faced with challenging tasks within a non-stressful collegial environment, these adults may have optimal opportunity to learn" (p. 36). Some brain research points to a "`state of flow' which humans enter when they participate in an activity they find interesting and challenging but not overwhelming" (Mannell, R. C., as cited in Williams, 1996). Recognizing the need for non-stressful learning environments, Costa and Liebmann (1997) stated, "Educators need to return to learners their willingness to be playful, courageous, trusting, and risk taking. We need to invite them to reach for their outermost limits at all times. We need to create environments that allow students to practice freely without fear" (p. xviii). Bennis (1994) connects this need beyond the classroom to the success of leaders. In identifying three basic ingredients for success Bennis names ideas, relationships, and adventure. Adventure, as he describes it, "has to do with risk, with a bias toward action, with curiosity and courage. And the challenge of leadership is to create the social architecture where ideas, relationships, and adventure can flourish" (p. xiv). Bennis goes on to describe a group of highly successful international businessmen who were alike in wanting to work very hard but who "also always had an enormous amount of fun" (p. 95).

The nature of adult learners, the learning activities, and the environments that influence learning helped form the philosophical basis for the choice of activities used in our classes. They also served to focus the purposes of this study.

Teaching/Learning Activities

Joyce, Well, and Showers (1992) examined teaching models used in classrooms as well as in industry. In their book, Models of Teaching, they highlight four models that have long histories of practice behind them, are adaptable, and have proven effectiveness: The Social Family, The Information-Processing Family, The Personal Family, and the Behavioral Systems Family. To provide a framework for this study, the learning activities we used are clustered around these four models as seen below.

1. The Social Family:

Based on the belief that cooperative behavior is stimulating not only socially but also intellectually. Hence, tasks requiring social interaction enhance academic learning.

Examples of Our Activities:

* Group discussions

* Bag reports

* Role Playing 

* Student conducted quizzes to begin each class session

2. Information-Processing Family:

Encourages students to seek and master information, organize it, build and test hypotheses, and apply the learning.

Examples of Our Activities:

* Lectures

* Readings and written assignments

* Case study discussions

* Student presentations

* Exams

3. Personal Family:

Students become partners in their own learning and develop specific kinds of qualitative thinking such as creativity and personal expression.

Examples of Our Activities:

* Journaling with connections between class and their world at school

* Structured debates

* In-basket projects

* Panel discussions

* Comparative analysis of a "Hero" and themselves

4. Behavioral Systems Family:

Students become self-correcting in response to information/feedback about themselves.

Examples of Our Activities:

* Resume development

* Conducting change project at school

* Engaging in The Change Game

* Mock job interviews

* Travel to and participate in state-wide conference

The Social Family activities were particularly important for our students as they spend much of their day teaching in isolation from their peers. This Family increases time students spent interacting with other graduate students and allows us, as instructors, to observe and assess their ability to communicate and interpret class material. The Information-Processing Family exercises require students to process information they receive through standard avenues such as reading textbooks and listening to lectures. This Family gives us, the instructors, the reassurance that we have covered the required material. The Personal Family activities encourage students to participate in their learning and, simultaneously, brings them into closer partnership with us. For example, when students write in their journals, they not only make connections between class material and their school but frequently indicate personal and professional growth they are experiencing, which provides us knowledge of their growth and of our success as well. The Behavior Systems Family provides students with personal and professional feedback which often touches on sensitive areas. For example, learning that you lack judgment when sharing your decisions in The Change Game, receiving feedback on how you handled a mock job interview, or viewing superior resumes of classmates may be threatening. These activities require us, as instructors, to be attuned to students' emotional needs by providing them reassurance, encouragement, and corrections.

Methodology

Joyce, Well, and Showers' (1992) research on effective teaching identifies four models: Social, Information-Processing, Personal, and Behavior Systems. For our research, classroom activities were classified according to these models. All activities were used for the purposes of enhancing the learning of aspiring administrators through assisting students to value their learning, to enjoy their participation in class, and to restructure their behavior and thinking about educational administration. While we were confident that the inclusion of thoughtfully selected activities from a variety of models would bring the desired growth, we were not as convinced that students viewed the activities in the same light. Consequently, over a period of three years, we gathered feedback about our endeavors from the students at the conclusion of each semester to determine differences in student perceptions of the value and enjoyment for the activities engaged in during the course. Specifically, we wanted to know, of all the activities those that students found most valuable and those that provided most enjoyment from those that were least valuable and enjoyable. Furthermore, we wanted to compare the value and enjoyment ratings for each of the models, separately for the required and elective courses. Finally, we wanted to compare the value and enjoyment ratings for each family across the type of course.

Three required core graduate courses were used for this study (The Principalship, The Administration of Special Programs, Public School Organization and Administration) and two electives (Leading and Managing Change in Organizations and Women in Leadership). Students at the end of the course completed a survey that required them to rate activities they had engaged in during that semester. Using a five-point Likert type scale, students rated each activity for (1) its value to them personally, (value rating) and (2) the enjoyment they received from engaging in the activity (fun rating). On this scale, the rating score of one indicated a low level of value or enjoyment and a rating of five for an item indicated that it provided a high level. Students also answered the question, "How, or in what way, have you been influenced by this course?"

Four hundred and sixty graduate level students from northeast Texas completed the surveys at the conclusion of fall, spring, and summer classes over a three-year period. Some of the courses were conducted off campus in a major urban setting, the others took place on the university campus which is located in a rural community. The course content and learning objectives remained the same regardless of site.

The data was first analyzed by computing means and standard deviations for each activity. Once this was performed, students' relative rankings of the activities--those highest and those lowest in value and enjoyment--was determined. Second, the student responses for each of the activities were grouped according to Joyce, Weil, and Showers' four teaching models. Once grouped, the fun and enjoyment ratings for each of the activities were summed to create total value and enjoyment scores for each family. These aggregated scores were then used for the following analyses. The data were first examined for linearity and normality. Next, the statistical analysis of t-test case II dependent was performed separately for the required and elective courses to determine significant differences between the total value and total enjoyment ratings students gave for each of the remaining three models. The t-test was not performed for the elective courses on the Behavioral Family because the number of cases was too small. Finally, given the unequal sizes of the cells (i.e., the required courses possessed significantly larger number of students) the test of one-way ANOVA was performed to determine differences across the course type for each model, except for the Behavioral Family. The test for homogeneity of variance was performed to assess whether the unequal cell sizes violated this assumption. No significant differences were located thus the data from the required and elective courses were similar in variance.

Results

Frequencies Regardless of Family

It was important to determine how high or how low particular activities were rated by students. Activities which 50 or more students rated were ranked according to their value to students and then according to the amount of enjoyment they reported having received from them (see Table 1).

Table 1 Means of Responses by Activity

Highest Ratings: Value

Activity         Family                          Mean

Job interviews   Behavior Systems Family         4.73
Resume writing   Behavior Systems Family         4.73
Hero project     Personal Family                 4.56
Lectures         Information Processing Family   4.45
Guest speakers   Information Processing Family   4.43
Case studies     Information Processing Family   4.42

Lowest Ratings: Value

Activity         Family                          Mean

Exams            Information Processing Family   3.76
Bag reports      Social Family                   3.76
Jigsaw           Information Processing Family   3.78
Quizzes          Social Family                   3.82
Debate           Personal Family                 3.86
Paper writing    Information Processing Family   3.89

Highest Rating: Fun

Activity         Family                          Mean

Job interviews   Behavior Systems Family         4.52
Role playing     Social Family                   4.32
Resume           Behavior Systems Family         4.28
Mirroring        Personal Family                 4.26
In-basket        Personal Family                 4.26
Hero project     Personal Family                 4.22

Lowest Ratings: Fun

Activity         Family                          Mean

Exams            Information Processing Family   2.23
Paper writing    Information Processing Family   2.44
Readings         Information Processing Family   3.25
Journaling       Personal Family                 3.42
Notebooks        Personal Family                 3.44
Research         Behavior Systems Family         3.47

In terms of value received from course exercises, the means for job interviews (4.73), resume writing (4.73), the Heroes Project (4.56), lectures (4.45), guest speakers (4.43), and case studies (4.42) were ranked the highest. The activities reported to be of least value were exams (3.76), Bag Reports (3.76), jig-sawing (3.78), weekly quizzes (3.82), class debates (3.86), and writing papers (3.89). (Bag Reports required students to place in a paper bag items representing key concepts from a journal article or selected reading. The concepts were then presented to the class using the items from the bag as visual cues. Jigsawing, borrowed from cooperative learning strategies, requires students to bring to class an article on an assigned topic. Students rotate from one small group to another, sharing the main idea of the reading, after which the class collectively searches for common issues and key concepts in the shared materials.

When responses were tallied for the amount of enjoyment students received, the exercises that received the highest ratings were role playing (4.32), resume writing (4.28), the mirroring activity (4.26), job interviews (4.52), and the in-basket activity (4.26). (Mirroring is a communication technique where students learn to listen and "mirror" a partners' problems.) Students' gave exams the lowest rating (2.23); writing of papers (2.44) and assigned readings (3.25) were close behind.

To examine the responses according to the teaching models, the means of each Family were calculated and then compared according to the value and enjoyment received (see Table 2). The means from the three core courses were calculated separately from those in the two electives.

Table 2 Comparisons of Means and Standard Deviations of Student Responses by Family and Course

            Family                     Value     Enjoyment

            Social                    (*)4.05      3.99
                                         (.73)     (.72)

CORE

SUBJECTS    Information-Processing   (**)4.12       3.26
                                         (.62)      (.71)

            Personal                 (**)4.14       3.58
                                         (.70)      (.87)

            Behavioral               (**)4.70       4.36
            Systems                      (.45)      (.52)

            Social                   (**)4.47       4.52
                                         (.51)      (.49)

ELECTIVES   Information-Processing   (**)4.48       3.84
                                         (.39)      (.68)

            Personal                 (**)4.54       3.86
                                         (.52)      (.96)

(*) Difference between value and enjoyment significant to the .01 level

(**) Difference between value and enjoyment significant to the .001 level

Core Courses For the core subjects, the Behavioral Systems Family was rated as having the highest value as well as providing the most enjoyment to the students. The Social Family received the lowest value ratings but the Information-Processing Family was rated the least enjoyable. Of interest here is the fact that means never fell below the 4.05 level on the 5 point scale in the value category and that students reported receiving significantly more value than enjoyment from all of the activities in their core classes.

Electives The number of student responses in the electives was far fewer than for the core courses as the core classes were required and had far larger class sizes than the electives. The Personal Family was reported as providing the greatest value to students but the Social Family was rated the highest for enjoyment. As with the core subjects, the Information Processing Family had the lowest rating for enjoyment. The means for all Families except Social were significantly higher for personal value than for enjoyment in the activities. On a five point scale, means for value received never dipped below 4.47 or below 3.84 for enjoyment.

Worth noting is the comparison of core subject means with the electives by Family. The means of the electives were higher than the means of the core subjects. For example, the Social Family mean in the core subjects was 4.05 but higher (4.47) in the electives.

Open-ended Question In order to enrich the information obtained from the activity ratings, students were asked, "How or in what what did the activities influence you?" An inductive approach was used to analyze this data. Rather than classifying responses intro pre-existing categories, the responses were analyzed so that categories emerged from the data and any differences of opinion were resolved through discussion. Four broad categories accounted for most of the responses.

The greatest number of responses (111) were in the category of "connections", affirming Knowles' (1980) assertion that adult learners are oriented to the developmental tasks of their professional roles. Students wrote that the class activities helped them make connections (a) to real life situations, (b) between theory taught and practice in the field, (c) to new perspectives of administration and of others, (d) to personal situations, and (e) in regard to future work in administration. Among these "connecting to my personal situation" (39 responses) was the most frequent.

Tyler (1949) talked of learning as taking place through experiences, stressing the reaction of the learner to those experiences. The second category indicated that students' reacted to our activities by "thinking." Thirty-six students stated that class activities caused them to think in a reflective way about their beliefs and philosophies. Twenty-nine respondents simply declared that the course "made me think", and 11 indicated that their thinking about the bigger picture/other viewpoints was enhanced.

The third broad category of responses focused on knowledge. Twenty-eight students said that the course influenced their level of knowledge and comprehensive about the subject matter and 36 claimed to have gained new insights and understandings (evaluation, synthesis, and application). In the fourth major category (34 responses) students talked about the course having caused them to engage in self evaluation and personal change, identify their strengths and weaknesses, and set goals for themselves. Twenty-three said their ability to work in teams had improved and 11 claimed their organizational and work habits had changed for the better.

Discussion

The findings from our study give us some important information regarding the structures and activities in our courses. Of particular satisfaction to us as professors was the relatively high value students placed on the learning experiences in which we had them engage over this three year period. In none of the four teaching models did means fall below 4 on a five point scale in either the core subjects or the electives. While students reported experiencing less enjoyment than value from the activities, this is not surprising. Students have little input in what we choose for them to do in classes or even in what courses they take to obtain their degrees or certifications. However, the fun and value ratings differences between core subjects and electives was marked. The electives were rated higher than the core subjects in both value to the students and in the enjoyment received from engaging in the activities. Two factors may contribute to the difference. Students come to these classes out of choice rather than by requirement. Likewise, we the instructors, design electives around the content about which we are most knowledgeable and which we most enjoy.

A finding worth our attention when planning future courses is the responses to activities in the Behavioral Systems Family. Means for this family exceeded the other Families in both value and enjoyment. Activities such as The Change Game, mock job interviews, and resume development allowed for considerable personal feedback to students. Students both valued and enjoyed these activities. One explanation for this can be found in what we know about adult learners. Knowles (1980) points out that one characteristic of adult learners is their increasing orientation to developmental tasks of their professional roles and their need for immediacy of application. The activities we used from the Behavioral System Family align well with the stage of development for which these students are striving, i.e., obtaining and succeeding in an administrative job. For these students, connections between these class activities and the realities of the future they desire is quite direct.

One set of findings that particularly intrigued us was the lower rankings of the Information Processing and the Social Families. It was not surprising that students ranked the Information Processing Family activities as the least enjoyable. After all, we almost expect students to dislike listening to lectures, reading, and writing papers. But, as instructors, much of our time outside of class is spent with the products related to these activities--planning lectures, reading papers students have written, and selecting appropriate reading assignments. However, like Joyce and Showers (1987), we believe in the power of direct instruction; it assures us we are covering the basic material students need to learn for their professional applications and, more immediately, to pass the state certification test. While we would have preferred that students placed relatively more value on these instructional activities, when frequencies of responses were tallied, lectures alone were ranked among the top four for value (mean = 4.5) and even exams came in at 3.76 our of a possible 5.

The Social Family includes activities where students are highly involved with their peers. In the courses we taught some of the activities in this family included student conducted class quizzes, small group discussions, role playing, and "bag reports". Interestingly, the rankings for this family of activities received the lowest of the four family groups. This surprised us given the recent stress on peer learning. One interpretation for this may be that, after a long day of teaching, students prefer to sit, listen, and take notes rather than engage in peer interactions. Or, perhaps, after their isolated existence at work, classroom teachers find opportunities to interact awkward. Graduate classes may provide one of the few opportunities these professionals have for developing and practicing skills of interacting with peers. The lower ratings could signal a need to do more activities in this family rather than fewer of them.

Table 1 displays the highest and lowest mean responses for both fun and value by activity. An examination of these means shows that students do not particularly enjoy or highly value taking exams and/or writing papers. Yet, exams and written assignments provide us, as instructors, with a major source of material for evaluating our students. (In fact, exams are required by our university.) We have obviously not succeeded in helping students make the connection between the written work we assign and their need to communicate well in an administrative position in schools. Nor have we helped students view exams as an opportunity to gauge their increase in professional knowledge. These findings present us with the challenge of making these activities (i.e., exams and papers) more meaningful to the students. We need to find ways to select topics and frame the purpose of the written assignments that are more valuable to students. Additionally, we need to help students understand the importance of exams in assessing their knowledge and understanding of the educational theory and research as professionals.

We were pleased to see that a large number of students took time to respond to the open-ended question, "How or in what way did the activities influence you?" The fact that so many students were able to make the connections between class and the real world of work and reported having been provoked to think about themselves and their work reinforced some of our major teaching goals. We want to remain vigilant on this issue by continuing to have students engage in activities from the Personal and Behavior Systems Families. Such activities will help them connect class concepts about administration to their "real world" experiences as teachers. By doing these connections, they construct their own new learning.

Responses to the open-ended question also indicated that what students learned in our courses immediately affected their collegiality. This is a point of pride for us because we know that leadership is not a position, it is a way of behaving. From our perspective, how our students interact with peers in current positions and how they lead their own students in their classrooms are good indications of how they will behave in the future as administrators.

Additionally, we were proud of the degree to which students reported seeing the relevance of what they were learning. The activities in these courses caused students to make connections between new and existing knowledge, reflect about themselves and others, and to move beyond isolated bits of information to new formulations and judgments about teaching, learning, and leading. Much has been written about educators as reflective practitioners. We perceive the comments made by these students to be indications of their growth as reflective practitioners. They not only report increases in their awareness of themselves and their actions but also adjustments in their attitudes and behaviors as a result of this increased awareness. This reported double loop learning noted in their reflections is a powerful element in improving performance.

The relatively high ratings of almost all of the activities in our courses were encouraging, particularly the degree of value students received from what we offered them. Additionally, we were pleased to learn that most all activities were perceived as enjoyable to some degree. This combination of valuable learning activities presented in a variety of formats which foster the learners' enjoyment seems to align well with Costa and Liebmann's (1997) notion of returning to learners "their willingness to be playful, courageous, trusting, and risk taking" (p. xvii).

If we are to follow our own advice then, we too, need to be reflective practitioners by using the feedback from this study to create our own double-loop learning. We not only need to accept the feedback given, but we must use it to improve our performance as teachers of adult learners. Our initial reflections in this regard lead us to consider the following actions:

(a) Use the "value and fun" rating sheet as a tool for planning and evaluating course performance expectations for students. The rating sheet can help us keep in mind that every activity in a course must have value, and, should be supported, whenever possible, with a high level of enjoyment. We must avoid having students spend time in activities that are fun but of little or no value. On the other hand, being fun does not exclude an activity from being valuable. We can use the fun and value rating form used in this study to be sure all activities planned--at least from our perspectives--have value and each has some level of enjoyment. This will help in creating the non-stressful learning environments which is so important for adults if optimal learning is to occur.

(b) Ask students to help us identify ways in which writing papers and taking exams can be made more immediately relevant to them as learners. It is important that professionals be familiar with the best research available if schools are to improve. We, as professors, see course exams and written papers as two important means of assuring that individuals acquire this knowledge. The puzzle is to accomplish this in ways that are more meaningful to the students involved. Are there ways to modify these activities to retain their value while simultaneously making them more enjoyable for students? Do students have suggestions of ways to increase the immediate relevance of tests and papers for them without sacrificing the important feedback these activities provide for us? We won't know until we ask.

(c) Offer new activities and modify current activities in the Social Family that students view as both valuable and fun. The literature on adult learning recognizes the need and value of collegial and cooperative environments. The activities offered in the Social Family are rich sources of opportunities for students to interact and cooperate. However, our data indicated that the activities we currently provide in this area were significantly lower in fun than in value from the students' perspective. We need to find ways to modify the current activities to maintain their value but increase students' levels of enjoyment. We also need to search for and create new activities that provide both value and fun to students as they engage in peer learning opportunities.

(d) Continue to monitor student perceptions regarding both dimensions. Our work here is based on three years of data from students who have gone through our courses. We need to administer this feedback form to current students; doing this could offer us some very different results. Students change over the years; we must not assume that our current students are exactly like those in years past. Additionally, we each have changed some content and activities within our courses (some by choice, some demanded by departmental curriculum changes). Therefore, we need to gather feedback on current operations from current students.

We are feeling good about the results of our study, what we've learned from it, and the actions we are planning to take based on the findings. The information we have will help us to address the needs of our adult learners more appropriately by finding ways to connect their rich base of experiences to the concepts and content of our courses on administration. Additionally, we want to continue developing and using a variety of activities that provide students with valuable learning experiences while at the same time fostering an environment of adventure and fun. Whether learners are four, fourteen, or forty, they deserve to have teachers who understand their needs, appreciate and build on their current knowledge and skills, and provide environments that truly foster a "joy of learning". Feedback from this study affirms not only our efforts and accomplishments in this regard but has also helped us to identify ways to improve.

References

Bennis, W. (1994). On becoming a leader. New York: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co.

Burdin, J. L., & Yoon, J. S. (Eds.). 1996. Prioritizing Instruction. Fourth Yearbook of the National Council of Professors of Educational Administration. Lancaster, PA: Technomics Publishing Co.

Costa, A. L., & Liebmann, R. M. (1097). Envisioning process as content. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, Inc.

Henson, K. T. (1995). Curriculum development for educational reform. New York: Harper Collins College Publishers.

Joyce, B., & Showers, B. (1987). Student achievement through staff development. New York: Longman.

Joyce, B., Weil, M., & Showers, B. (1992). Models of teaching. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Knowles, M. (1980). The modern practice of adult education: From pedagogy to andragogy. Chicago: Follett.

Rogers, C. R. (1969). Freedom to learn. Columbus, OH: Charles E. Merrill Publishing Company.

Slavin, R., Karweit, N., & Madden, N. (1989). Effective programs for students at risk. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Smith, E. (1995). Where is the mind? Knowing and knowledge in Cobb's constructivist and sociocultural perspectives. Educational Researcher, 24(6), 23-24.

Tyler, R. W. (1949). Basic principles of. curriculum and instruction. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Williams, M. T. Playing is the thing: Three activities for school leaders. In J. L. Burdin and J. S. Yoon (Eds), Prioritizing instruction. Fourth yearbook of the National Council of Professors of Educational Administration (pp. 36-41), Lancaster, PA: Technomics Publishing Co.

Gwen Schroth, Ed.D., Associate Professor, Department of Educational Administration, Texas A&M University-Commerce. Anita Pankake, Ph.D., Department of Educational Administration, Texas A&M University-Commerce. Gordon Gates, Ph.D., Department of Educational Administration, Texas A&M University.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Dr. Schroth, Department of Educational Administration, Texas A&M University-Commerce, Commerce, Texas 75429. Email address is: [e-mail]