Planning Programs for Adults: Whats It All About - Book Report/Review Example

? Chapter Planning Programs for Adults: What’s It All About?- Summary Chapter Planning Programs for Adults: What’s It All About?- Summary: (Caffarella, 2001) in this chapter beautifully starts explaining what the process of planning programs for adults is all about by giving the example of ocean waters which if sometimes are rough and violent, then at other times may be serene and calm. Both experienced and naive program planners feel confident about wading through the serene ocean, but they prefer staying on the fringes when the ocean gets dark and wild. This hesitant behavior displayed by the program planners seriously interferes with the functioning of program planning and the program itself. Program planning for adults is not a set course that is to be followed by the program planners, rather sometimes the planners may readily get what they desire like financial support and resources while not getting a single favor at other times thus ruining their any hope of survival in the dark and angry ocean. The aim of this chapter is to explain the intricate details regarding program planning to the people who wish to plan programs for adults. Educational programs for adults may range from simple workshops based on a few hours or a full day to highly intensive residential study which is typically planned for the corporate sector. The nature of programs for adults may also vary from those based on simple open discussion format to very high-level programs in full bloom which are typically conducted considering set parameters. Those parameters typically include educational workshops, seminars, and peer coaching. Not every employee is essentially required to respect every single parameter of the highly intensive programs for adults, though every novice employee is required to attend every session so that high organizational performance could be ensured. An important feature of program planning for adults is that such programs may either be individualized to a person’s specific needs or they are designed for a large number of people so that group learning could be practiced. Adults participating in such educational programs which are planned in accordance with their needs may interact with the highly professional associations, which host such programs, by coming to a specific location or by electronic means while sitting at homes like web-based formats. Now, the actual people who strive to design programs for adults may come from different cultural or economic backgrounds and may have varying academic qualifications and capabilities. It is not necessary that program planning is entirely the domain of highly professional and learned planners who have past experiences of program planning. Rather, planning education activities for adults may even be practiced by those planners who do not have any riveting formal training for planning programs for adults. Myriad planners may have master’s degrees yet no experience in planning programs for the senior staff at the workplace. Still, they may be required to attend to the complicated needs of their adult staff members so that new instructional strategies could be explained to them in the workshop sessions. Program planning is undeniably a complicated process which can never be handled appropriately unless the program planners and coordinators pay special attention to any change occurring in the state and federal mandates which may be done by planning in-house and district-wide staff development programs. It is a fact that many planners learn the art of designing programs for adults by just doing it even if they do not have any significant expertise in this area before they start planning programs. Instead of hesitating because of having no expertise in program planning, focusing on factors like technology and changing demands of the adults attending the programs should be considered more important by the planners. It remains a tragedy however that the efforts of many supervisors, who coordinate formal educational programs and sacrifice their countless hours as volunteer program planners, are rarely recognized and no official titles are rewarded to them. Next part discussed in the chapter is identifying myriad important purposes associated with planning educational or training programs for adults. The first most important purpose identified is promoting the learning development of adults participating in the program according to the requirements of the time so that the participants become able to acknowledge the latest instructional measures. Second purpose of planning programs that should be acknowledged by the planners is to arm the adult participants with every possible mental skill that is required to handle the problems and pressures of adult life. Next related purpose of planning programs is educating the participants in such a way that they learn to respond maturely and effectively to the ongoing and future work opportunities according to the most credible professional standards. This purpose is highly important since the planners need to focus on highly sensitive and favorite professional demands of various organizations which they have to teach to the adults attending the training program. As mentioned earlier, program planning is not restricted to small groups or firms, rather training programs hold special importance in corporate sector as well. Instructing the staff working for any large organization about the ways to achieve the desired target in a short time period while taking care of the changing patterns in the market and effectively adapting to any change, be it in the organizational setup or customer preferences, forms the fourth important purpose behind planning training programs for adults. The last important purpose of planning programs identified in the chapter is based on exposing critically important opportunities to the program attendants for recognizing and handling any community and societal change. Respecting the changing occurring in thoughts and patterns of individuals, organizations, and the community at large is highly important and this art of change acknowledgement and examination should be made one of the most highly contemplated features of a training program. Basically, it is the changes in the organizational or societal setup that make up a chain and link together all the education and training programs for adults. All these purposes can be taken care of in a program only if the planners follow an effective model or guide for planning instructional programs for adults since program planning may become chaotic and unsystematic halfway through otherwise. Chapter 2: The Interactive Model of Program Planning- Summary Name University Chapter# 2: The Interactive Model of Program Planning- Summary: (Caffarella, 2001) in this chapter strives to identify the special importance of following a particular model or guide for planning a training program for adults so that chaos and pandemonium could be reduced that is created when planners get confused due to poorly planned programs. The Interactive Model of Program Planning is one such model that forms the bedrock of this chapter. The primarily important feature associated with this model is that it takes into account the vibrantly dynamic nature of the program planning process so that no little change could be overlooked by the program coordinators and not instructed to the attendants. Though many features of this model may be similar to the previous models used for program planning, still its distinguished features include taking care of the cultural backgrounds of the program attendants and the location they are from in addition to laying especial emphasis on their desires and mode of thinking and analyzing instructional strategies taught during the program by the supervisors. Another distinguished feature is that this model is more interactive and more capable of effectively engaging the attendants during the peer coaching process thus earning the status of a practical tool for practitioners. The chapter identifies that this models consists of 12 important components while its structural framework is grounded on seven major assumptions. The program supervisors may use the 12 part of this model in any order or in any combination which is the secret why this model is considered to be interactive. Program planning is seldom a linear process, rather majority of the programs are planned after several model components taken into account at the same time or there are other programs in which evaluating needs may form the definite starting point, all depending on the specific planning situation. The fact that it is the program planners who have to determine the context for planning forms the first component of this model for program planning. Ensuring a solid base of support forms the second component since this remains a reality that program planning is a people’s activity and not a single person’s achievement. Deviating from the set course leads the planners and attendants to misjudge each other’s ideas, therefore identifying the program ideas remains the third model component. By using this model, many planners have ended up with expanded minds about how the planning process should be tackled and this broadmindedness typically results from taking into account the varying cultural perspectives of the attendants. Adjusting or prioritizing the program ideas is the fourth component and in working with program attendants or groups who are more centralized and authoritarian, sorting the program ideas is an important duty on the part of program planners. Developing program objectives prior to initiating the group study is the fifth important component and needs to be well considered by the planners in an order to introduce and instruct the intricate methodologies to the program participants while keeping in mind the actual target of the training program. Many novice planners do not consider designing plans an important part of their planning responsibilities. Designing instructional plans and transfer-of-learning plans are other components which help the planners know what they are doing. Formulating evaluation plans is a component which is also something that many planners did not consider a part of their planning responsibilities prior to using this model. Making recommendations is a component that helps the planners in assessing the weak and strong points of the training program. Preparing budgets is such a component that helps the planners is evaluating the costs of the program and the budget report has to be later shown to the financial supporting bodies. Finally, arranging facilities for the learners in and ensuring an ideal learning environment for the program participants is also a component of this model. With the introduction of all these components, program planners have begun to perceive their roles in a different way. One of the most important assumptions on which this model stands is that how the participants are learning and how it influences them and other societal issues. A real planner should know how to deal with this assumption effectively which cannot be done without initiating a negotiating activity among program supervisors, attendants, organizations, and stakeholders while taking care to pay special attention to their individual beliefs about the planning process. This is also how a strong base of people’s support can be formed. Secondly, planning programs is not a step-by-step process, rather it involves complex interactions between various factors like organizational priorities, participants’ desires, program objectives and instructional strategies. Third most important assumption is related to how intensely the program supervisors or planners understand the importance of initiating the negotiating activity during the training program between instructors and learners. This is because many important ideas and constructive concepts can be brought up to the surface through negotiation. The result achieved from a real training program should be a negotiated product. Moreover, in the process of constructing the Interactive Model of Program Planning, three major sources were taken into account. First, the classical or somewhat orthodox concepts of program planning were considered due to which many features of this program planning model can be found very similar to the features associated with older models. Second, principles and practices of adult learning were scrutinized for introducing this new planning model. It was critically important to pay attention to how the adults learn and how their thinking perspectives change over time in the process of making the new model because adults have a rich background of information and experience which after being acknowledged leads the adults to learn the best in a training program. Such sharing of rich knowledge is highly important. Day-to-day experiences of the program planners, participants, and other coordinators was another source used for formulating the new planning model. Adult learning and experience sharing was also used as a source for constructing the Interactive Model because adults prefer to be actively involved in the learning process rather than adopting a recipient role. Reference: Caffarella, R. S. (2001). Planning programs for adult learners: A practical guide for educators, trainers, and staff developers (2nd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Read More