Adult Education Faculty Receive Outstanding Program Leadership Award
Faculty members Frank Di Silvestro and Marjorie Treff have been honored with the 2016 Malcolm Knowles Award for Outstanding Adult Education Program Leadership
Faculty members Frank Di Silvestro and Marjorie Treff have been honored for their work in the the Adult Education program at the IU School of Education with the 2016 Malcolm Knowles Award for Outstanding Adult Education Program Leadership from the American Association for Adult and Continuing Education. The award recognizes the M.S.Ed. in Adult Education in the Department of Instructional Systems Technology. Di Silvestro has been involved in Adult Education at the School of Education since 1998, while Treff started has a student in the program in 2001 and now teaches.
Treff called Malcolm Knowles the father of adult education in the U.S. The program at IU relies heavily on the foundation he laid out, such as using the students’ prior experiences and bringing that into the classroom as a source for teaching and learning for other students in class.
“We also ask students to get involved in directing their own program of studies from the very beginning. We acknowledge their role and responsibility,” Treff said.
Di Silvestro added, “I think we were awarded this because we have a really good program that meets the needs of adult ed practitioners. People who graduate from our program can help either other adult educators or they can utilize what they’ve learned themselves.”
The Adult Education program is an online degree program, meeting the needs of students who cannot travel to campus for classes because of work or other commitments.
“One of the exciting things about this program is we have students all over the U.S. and even some expats in foreign countries who go through our program because it’s online,” Treff said. “I’ve had students in Switzerland, Japan, in China, who are doing coursework.
Treff and Di Silvestro will travel to Alberquerque, New Mexico, next month for the awards ceremony.
“It’s really neat for us to be acknowledged by our peers because they’re the ones who decide who gets the award,” Di Silvestro commented.
