There are a number of researchers who are investigating ways to sequence learning. Significant amongst these are Bruner (Flores, 2001), Reigeluth (Reigeluth, 1999) and Landa (in “Sequencing of Instruction” and “Algo-Heuristic Theory”). The problem with all of these models, as far as my adult Indigenous learning situation is concerned is that the models do not fit the reality of my learning context. Bruner talks about organising curriculum in a spiral manner so that the students continually build on what they have already learned. This apparently seamless model probably works for the children to whom its development was linked. Again, Reigeluth presents a very carefully constructed model of learning in his Elaboration Theory. One of the basic premises of this theory is that instruction should be organised in increasing order of complexity. This notion is better tied to the teaching of children where you may have the ability to impose this highly structured learning experience on students. My people would not stand for it. I am not saying that Reigeluth has it wrong. I am saying that most adults would not stand for such a system. The claim that the elaboration approach results in “increased learner motivation” is difficult to sustain. Then we come to Landa’s “snowball method” which is once again based on a well-ordered linear progression. In other words, if you break any problem down into small enough parts you will get to a primary sequence which will then allow you to solve the problem, however long it takes. This is industrial engineering at its best where the assembly line process is broken down into its basic components, which the worker is supposed to perform better than a machine, or be replaced by a machine. The worker is an adjunct at best. I sense the same role for the learner in Landa’s work. Having put aside some of the most significant advances in ID in recent years where does that leave me and my students - and our upcoming 50-hour F2F course in Mental Health at the Diploma level? Fortunately Knowles has some suggestions to make that help give me a necessary theoretical orientation. Fidishun gives a very clear analysis of the key elements of Knowles’ Andragogy, the art and science of teaching adults (Fidishun, 2000). First adults need to know why they should learn something. With my group I undertook a round-table discussion about the possibility of a course in Mental Health as part of the Ministry Education component of their Diploma of Theology. I asked them whether they had any use for such a course. My own intuition was that as Indigenous Australians they had been pretty well worked over in the Mental Health area with deaths in custody, rampant abuse and domestic violence, suicide and other assorted problems. My intuition was wrong. There were eighteen students present and they insisted that they needed to know a great deal about the Mental Health system and how to access it effectively. The second element is that adults resent and resist situations in which they feel others are imposing their wills on them. Initially I provided the students with the nationally established learning outcomes for the module. After we had all decided that these were incomprehensible, I undertook to fit their design into the national matrix as closely as I could. My students had determined that they wanted to learn about Mental Health, so the next stage was for them to become involved in collaborative decision-making to determine the sequencing and content of their learning. As James Atherton says “adults need to be responsible for their own decisions and to be treated as capable of self-direction”(Atherton, 2001). The result of their collaborative effort was a series of butcher-paper sheets recording what they thought they needed to know and the order in which they needed to learn it. They acknowledged that a Mental Health educator should be included as part of the process to provide specific, professional content. The students agreed to accept the following measures of performance for their assessment. a. The degree of personal reflection, b. Participation in group discussion, c. Appropriate use of the Bible in their interactions, d. Their ability to answer questions as they are asked, and e. Their ability to transfer classroom learning to their own situation in the communities. This assessment process is formative in that, after Day 2, students are given feedback on their performance on a daily basis. These formative assessments are the main components of the final summative assessment that includes a measure for group participation. Because of the contextualising of all of the learning, adults are motivated students because they perceive that what they are learning will help them perform tasks they may confront in life situations. This whole process has moved quite markedly away from empirically measurable data towards qualitative methodology. The evaluation process requires group collaboration to determine the degree of effectiveness of the course module. This involves a detailed consideration of the individual learning elements of the module by the group, to determine what modifications need to be made. These would then be included in the redesign of the module. I believe that this has been an efficient instrument for the sequencing learning to maximize the transfer of knowledge in the adult Indigenous Australian context. http://www.gwu.edu/~tip/sequence.html. Atherton, J. (2001) http://www.dmu.ac.uk/~jamesa/learning/knowlesa.htm. Fidishun, D. (2000) http://www.mtsu.edu/~itconf/proceed00/. Flores, N. (2001) http://www.newfoundations.com/GALLERY/Bruner.html. Landa, L. http://tip.psychology.org/land.html. Reigeluth, C. M. (1999) In Instructional-Design Theories and Models: A New Paradigm of Instruction Theory (Ed, Reigeluth, C. M. e.) Erlbaum, New Jersey.