Powerful Techniques for Teaching in Lifelong Learning is a practical handbook that offers a range of helpful ideas and approaches for working with older learners. Written in an accessible and conversational style, it draws on the author’s vast experience of working with older learners and tackles some of the major challenges and problems you are likely to face in teaching older learners, such as addressing inequality and diversity and dealing with resistance.
Over fifty techniques, exercises and methods explained in the book promote:
- Teaching for critical thinking
- Using discussion
- Self directed learning
- Creating democratic classrooms
- Teaching about power
- Teaching through the creative arts
The book is informed by a particular understanding of what constitutes a powerful technique, taking into account the power relationships that exist in the adult classroom and empowering students to develop a sense of their own agency and confidence in their abilities as learners.
With its wide range of ideas, examples and case studies that illustrate how the approaches work in practice, this is an excellent resource for anyone working in the lifelong learning sector looking to invigorate their teaching techniques.
“Brookfield writes in a nice easy-to-read autobiographical style. He explains and fully discusses many good techniques for teaching in an effective and humane manner. Everybody who teaches, whether they teach children or adults, will benefit from reading this interesting book and learning from his lifetime of experience as a teacher.”
Peter Jarvis, Emeritus Professor of Continuing Education University of Surrey, UK
“This book is not about increasing your power as a teacher – it is about the dynamics of power in the adult classroom, challenging power structures, and the techniques teachers can use to empower learners. Brookfield uses the lens of ‘power’ to distill, for the practitioner, a lifetime’s work of scholarly and practical engagement with adult teaching and learning.”
Mark Tennant, Emeritus Professor, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
“As he explores the pervasive nature of power in teaching, Stephen Brookfield takes us inside his own teaching, offering a treasure trove of practical ideas – what works and what doesn’t work – in pursuit of democratic educational practices. While reading, I felt as though I was talking with a colleague about his struggles, his strategies, and some of what he has learned across forty years of teaching adults. If you want to see how one of the most widely read academics in adult education brings his scholarship into pedagogical practices, read this book! It will be something you go to time and again for ways to make your teaching more democratic.”
Dan Pratt, Ph.D., Professor & Senior Scholar,University of British Columbia, Canada
Stephen Brookfield is Distinguished University Professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis, USA. He has written fourteen books on adult learning, teaching, critical thinking, discussion methods and critical theory, four of which have won awards.
