Goodbye to Prof. Dr. Paula Guimarães!

Goodbye to Prof. Dr. Paula Guimarães! 

By February 14, the DAAD visiting professorship of Prof. Paula Guimarães (University of Lisbon, Institute of Education) at the Professorship for Adult and Continuing Education at JMU ended. It was a great pleasure and inspiring experience sharing Prof. Guimarães’ perspectives on adult learning.  
Though planned in hybrid form, unfortunately, the pandemic did not allow coming back to presence classes. Nevertheless, Prof. Guimarães organized an international workshop with experts and students from many countries all over the world, which was performed virtually and attended by more than 100 participants. Although seminars and other lectures (i.e. public lecture on advances and setbacks of adult learning and education in Germany and Portugal since 2000 under the influence of European Union guidelines) had to be processed in the same virtual way, students highly appreciated Prof. Guimarães’ didactical concepts to meet these special circumstances. Great discussions aroused raising interest and curiosity on Prof. Guimarães’ ideas on sustainable adult learning.  

Some comments on her stay: 

“I am very thrilled about the way Professor Guimarães facilitated learning. I also enjoyed the thematic content discussed in each section, which took into account the work of eminent scholars in Adult Education like Paulo Freire, Jack Mezirow and Malcolm Knowles.” 

“I enjoyed the friendly learning climate engaged by the teacher which encouraged the critical reflection ability of every student in the seminar and was a great way to foster our learning." 

"The online format was well coordinated and Professor Guimarães made the learning process interactive so that each session felt like a physical meeting." 

Thank you Prof. Guimarães for sharing your expertise! 

Thanks also to DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) for supporting the visiting professorship during winter term 2020/2021 with means of BMBF (German Federal Ministry of Education and Research).