The Context of Adult Learning

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The Context of Adult Learning
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Education and Learning

• Look around us
• Where does education take place?
• Where does learning take place?
• Ponder on the following statement
• In all education there is learning but not
  necessarily in all learning there is education

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What is Learning?

• Learning is the process whereby knowledge is
  created through the transformation of experience
  (Kolb, 1984).
• training, development and education are
  essentially concerned with learning.

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What is Learning?

• Learning is change knowledge and also behavior.
  The changes are directed more towards
  reinforcement than to alteration of patterns of
  knowledge and behavior.
• He burned his fingers. He learned not to do that
  again.
• I had some trouble with that machine but I
  learned how to manage it.

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What is Learning?

• Kurt Lewin has suggested that learning changes
  occur in skills, in cognitive patterns (knowledge
  and understanding), in motivation and interest,
  and in ideology (fundamental belief).

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What is Learning?

• Example of domains of learning
• Motor skills which require practice
• Verbal information facts, principles and
  generalizations, which, when organized into
  larger bodies of information, become knowledge.
• Intellectual skills the skills of using
  knowledge those discriminations, concepts and
  rules that characterize both elementary and more
  advanced cognitive learning and rely on prior
  learning

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What is Learning?

• Cognitive strategies the way knowledge is used
  the way the individual learns, remembers and
  thinks the self-managed skills needed to define
  and solve problems. They require practice and are
  constantly being refined.
• Attitudes.

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Adult Learning Concept

• Experiential learning problem-based learning
  (PBL)
• Independent self-directed learning (SDL)
• Andragogy
• Communities of practice (CoP)

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Adult Learning Concept

• Experiential learning refers to the knowledge and
  skills acquired through life and work experience
  and study which are not formally attested through
  any educational or professional certification
• Involves the learner in sorting things out for
  himself, by restructuring his perceptions of what
  is happening

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Adult Learning Concept

• PBL refers to an educational approach that makes
  deliberate use of learning strategies suggested
  by theories of experiential learning
• Use realistic problems of the kind the
  learner is likely to encounter in their current
  or future workplace as the basis for learning,
  practical experience and a deeper understanding
  of the relation between practice theory can be
  developed in the individual. E.g. medical
  education

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Adult Learning Concept

• Example
• Using stimulus material to help students discuss
  an important problem, question or issue
• Presenting the problem as a simulation of
  professional practice or a real life situation
• Appropriately guiding students critical thinking
  and providing limited resources to help them
  learn from defining and attempting to resolve the
  given problem
• Having students work cooperatively as a group,
  exploring information in and out of class, with
  access to a tutor who knows the problem well and
  can facilitate the groups learning process

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Adult Learning Concept

• Example
• Getting students to identify their own learning
  needs and appropriate use of available resources
• Reapplying this new knowledge to the original
  problem and evaluating their learning processes

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Adult Learning Concept

• Independent SDL is associated with the work
  (grounded in andragogy)
• focuses on the process by which adults take
  control of their own learning, in particular how
  they set their own learning goals, locate
  appropriate resources, decide on which learning
  methods to use and evaluate their progress

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Adult Learning Concept

• Andragogy
• In the mid-1960s Malcolm Knowles first used the
  term "andragogy" to describe adult learning.
  Whilst pedagogy is generally used to describe
  "the science of teaching children, andragogy
  relates to the art and science of helping adults
  learn". (Knowles 1970).
• Andragogy is based on five crucial assumptions
  about the characteristics of adult learners that
  are different from the assumptions about child
  learners.

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Five crucial assumptions

• The need to know adult learners need to know
  why they need to learn something before
  undertaking to learn it.
• Learner self-concept adults need to be
  responsible for their own decisions and to be
  treated as capable of self-direction
• Role of learners' experience adult learners have
  a variety of experiences of life which represent
  the richest resource for learning. These
  experiences are however imbued with bias and
  presupposition.
• Readiness to learn adults are ready to learn
  those things they need to know in order to cope
  effectively with life situations.
• Orientation to learning adults are motivated to
  learn to the extent that they perceive that it
  will help them perform tasks they confront in
  their life situations.

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Andragogy vs Pedagogy(classroom distinctions)
Regarding Pedagogy Andragogy
Concept of learner Dependent learner Full responsibility on instructor what, how, when, and if material has been learned Self-directed learner Instructors encourage and nurture
Role of learners experience What they bring as little worth Use of text, audiovisuals to gain experience of teacher Primary techniques include AV presentation, lecture, assigned reading Learners experience is valuable Learn from experience Primary techniques lab experiments, discussion, field experiences, simulation, problem solving cases
Orientation to learning Process of acquiring subject matter Content to be used at a much later time Process of developing increased competence to achieve their full potential in life ability to apply knowledge and skills more effectively tomorrow
Readiness to learn Society determines Standard curriculum Internally experience a need to learn Organized around life application categories
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From Andragogy to Heutagogy

• It may be argued that the rapid rate of change in
  society, and the so-called information explosion,
  suggest that we should now be looking at an
  educational approach where it is the learner
  himself who determines what and how learning
  should take place.
• Heutagogy, the study of self-determined learning,
  may be viewed as a natural progression from
  earlier educational methodologies - in particular
  from capability development - and may well
  provide the optimal approach to learning in the
  twenty-first century.

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From Andragogy to Heutagogy
Passive Teacher
Heutagogy
Active Student
100
Synergogy
T E A C H E R
50
Andragogy
Pedagogy
0
Active Teacher
Passive Student
STUDENT
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Adult Learning Concept

• CoP refer to the basic building blocks of a
  social learning system because they are the
  social containers of the competences that make
  up such a system. By participating in these
  communities, we define with each other what
  constitutes competence in a given context being
  a reliable doctor, a gifted photographer, a
  popular student,
• Informal group

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Adult Learning Concept

• members are bound together by their collectively
  developed understanding of what their community
  is about and they hold each other accountable to
  this sense of joint enterprise.
• you must understand the enterprise well enough to
  be able to contribute to it
• Interact mutually in the community

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Learning in Formal Settings
Independent AE organizations e.g. proprietary
schools community-based agencies
Quasi-educational organizations E.g. community
organizations
Categories of Learning Provider
Educational institutions E.g. universities,
colleges
Non-educational organizations e.g. business
industry.
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