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Decades of data.
Ten time-tested principles

As a pioneer in adult learning advocacy, we’ve been fortunate to partner with hundreds of institutions over the past four-plus decades. By linking learning and work, the CAEL community has helped tens of thousands of post-traditional students navigate lifelong learning and career pathways. Along the way, we’ve tracked the effects of policies and procedures throughout the adult learning ecosystem, helping institutions adopt and optimize best practices for excellence in their own communities.

In 1998, we sought to translate this experience into a foundation of priorities that institutions could use to better support adult learners and meet their unique needs.  Informed by a national benchmarking study and a deep qualitative analysis of exemplary adult-serving institutions, CAEL outlined a framework for best practices called the Ten Principles for Effectively Serving Adult Learners.

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New Framework for Adult Learners

CAEL has developed a new framework for creating Adult Learner Leaders for Institutional Effectiveness (ALLIES) that represents the evolution of our prior Ten Principles. We invite you to learn more and read about the new framework for adult learners here.

New Framework for Adult Learners

Ten Principles of Serving Adult Learners

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Adaptivity

Adjusts to shifting external market forces and is able to adapt to the changing expectations of internal stakeholders, students and employers―understanding the needs of those they serve by developing creative academic solutions
Adaptivity
AL360_principle_2_Assessment

Assessment of Learning Outcomes

Defines and assesses the knowledge, skills, and competencies acquired by adult learners—both from the curriculum and from life and work experience—in order to assign credit and confer degrees with rigor
Assessment of Learning Outcomes
AL360_principle_3_Financing

Financing

Promotes choice using an array of payment options for adult learners in order to expand equity and financial flexibility
Financing
AL360_principle_4_LifeCareerPlan

Life & Career Planning

Addresses adult learners’ life and career goals before or at the onset of enrollment in order to assess and align its capacities to help learners reach their goals
Life & Career Planning
AL360_principle_5_Outreach

Outreach

Conducts its outreach to adult learners by overcoming barriers in time, place and tradition in order to create lifelong access to educational opportunities
Outreach
AL360_principle_9_Technology

Technology

Uses technology to provide relevant and timely information and to enhance the learning experience
Technology
AL360_principle_6_StrategicPartnerships

Strategic Partnerships

Engages in strategic relationships, partnerships and collaborations with employers and other organizations in order to develop and improve educational opportunities for adult learners
Strategic Partnerships
AL360_principle_7_StudentSupport

Student Support Systems

Assists adult learners using comprehensive academic and student support systems in order to enhance students’ capacities to become self-directed, lifelong learners
Student Support Systems
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Teaching-Learning Process

Faculty uses multiple methods of instruction (including experiential and problem-based methods) for adult learners in order to connect curricular concepts to useful knowledge and skills
Teaching-Learning Process
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Transitions

Supports guided pathways that lead into and from the institution's programs and services in order to ensure that students' learning will apply usefully to achieving their educational and career goals
Transitions
"The Principles provide a valuable framework that programs, institutions, or entire systems can use toward continuous improvement and innovation, ultimately empowering more adult learners with the education they need for economic mobility."
Barry Darnell

Senior Director of Higher Education Initatives
CAEL

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Best Practices Shaped by a Continual Research Makes Serving Adult Learners a Little Easier

The Principles are not prescriptive. Rather, they offer a framework for the kind of institutional policies, programs, services, processes, and capacity building that support adult learners. This fosters flexibility and innovation in response to shifts in education and employment landscapes. The Principles themselves have been adjusted periodically and continue to evolve to remain oriented on the most decisive factors in supporting adult learner recruitment, retention, and success. 

A Blueprint for Meeting Adult Learners Where They Are

Today, the Principles inform the technical assistance and initiative and program support CAEL offers to schools and systems. And they are the foundation for Adult Learner 360TM, a diagnostic tool that taps the voices of adult learners themselves and collects the latest and most relevant data to help institutions improve their effectiveness in serving adult learners.

Each of the Principles has value on its own, but true impact is achieved when institutions implement them in an integrated and comprehensive strategy that puts the adult learner at the center. Contact us today to learn more and for help putting the Ten Principles into practice. 

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Adult Learning Principles in Practice