This content was published: January 30, 2024. Phone numbers, email addresses, and other information may have changed.
Fostering Age-Inclusive Learning Communities
Posted by anne.grey
Presented By: Jenny Sasser, Gerontology Program & CTLE, and Kerry Pataki, Part-Time Instructor, Teaching and Learning Excellence.
Summary
This Lunch & Learn series explores how faculty and staff can foster learning communities that welcome people across the life course. The sessions invite participants to consider the strengths and challenges of multigenerational, age-diverse learning environments and to examine how age, aging, and ageism can influence students, employees, and educational practices.
The presenters introduce several guiding principles for thinking about aging. Aging is a universal but individual experience that unfolds throughout the entire life course. It is shaped by physical, psychological, social, cultural, and environmental contexts and includes a combination of gains, losses, and continuities rather than being defined only by decline.
The sessions also distinguish between being “age-friendly” and “age-inclusive.” Age-friendly practices make educational opportunities more accessible to people as they age. Age-inclusivity goes further by considering whether those practices and values are intentionally recognized and integrated into the culture, practices, and mission of an educational institution.
Participants explore principles of age-inclusive higher education, including supporting educational opportunities for older adults, recognizing different learning needs, encouraging intergenerational learning, widening access to online education, supporting career development across the life course, and creating opportunities for people of different ages to share knowledge and expertise.
The series encourages participants to move beyond simply having people of different generations in the same space toward creating meaningful intergenerational relationships. Discussions consider age-related assumptions, technology barriers, representation, individual differences within generations, and ways educators can create opportunities for people of different ages to learn with and from one another.
Participants are also invited to reflect on their own aging journey and imagine what an age-inclusive learning community should feel like. The sessions encourage continued conversation about how PCC can create environments where learners and employees of all ages feel represented, respected, valued, and connected.
Slides: Session 1: Fostering Age-Inclusive Learning Communities | Session 2: Fostering Age-Inclusive Learning Communities
Presentation outcomes
- Recognize the characteristics of age-inclusive learning environments.
- Consider the strengths and challenges of multigenerational and age-diverse learning communities.
- Distinguish between age-friendly practices and a broader age-inclusive approach.
- Explore how age, aging, and ageism can influence experiences in higher education.
- Consider ways to promote meaningful intergenerational learning and the reciprocal sharing of knowledge and expertise.
- Identify opportunities to reduce barriers and make educational experiences more welcoming to learners across the life course.
- Reflect on personal assumptions about age and generation and how those assumptions may influence interactions with students and colleagues.
- Contribute to creating and fostering age-inclusive learning communities at PCC.