• Relevancy addresses the need for adult learners to have access to learning opportunities with content that is relevant to their family, work and community responsibilities. At the very least, courses need to be applicable to their current responsibilities and consistent with their career aspirations and future professional and personal development.
• Respect addresses the need for adult learners to be treated by all staff members of educational institutions – instructors, administrators, and service providers – with thoughtful consideration. Too many adult learners encounter negative attitudes of staff members toward part-time, adult learners, particularly those who are not familiar with post secondary educational institutions.

1.3 Best practices in teaching

The research team reviewed some reports and studies that address best practices in teaching (Angelo, 1993; Gardiner, 1994; McKeachie, 1994; Polson, 1993; Stage, Muller, Kinzie, & Simmons, 1998). While not directly related to barriers and access, these reports apply existing research to the improvement of learning opportunities. Like the elements of a lifelong learning system identified by Potter and Ferguson (2003), these reports on best practices imply essential principles for extending and supporting lifelong learning in formal classrooms.

The best summary of these practices is provided by Thomas Angelo (1993):

• Active learning is more effective than passive learning.
• Learning requires focused attention and an awareness of the importance of what is to be learned
• Learning is more effective and efficient when learners have explicit, reasonable, positive goals, and when their goals fit well with the instructor's goals.
• To be remembered, new information must be meaningfully connected to prior knowledge; it must first be remembered in order to be learned.
• Unlearning what is already known is often more difficult than learning new information.
• Information organized in personally meaningful ways is more likely to be retained, learned, and used.
• To learn well, learners need feedback on their learning, early and often; to become independent, they need to learn how to give themselves feedback.
• The ways in which learners are assessed and evaluated powerfully affect the ways they study and learn.
• Mastering a skill or body of knowledge takes great amounts of time and effort.
• Learning to transfer, to apply knowledge and skills in new contexts, requires a great deal of practice.
• High expectation encourages high achievement.
• To be most effective, instructors need to balance levels of intellectual challenge and instructional support.
• Motivation to learn is alterable; it can be positively or negatively affected by the task, the environment, the instructor, the learner.
• Interaction between instructors and learners is one of the most powerful factors in promoting learning; interaction among learners is another.