Using adult learning principles to establish a learning climate

1
Using adult learning principles to establish a
learning climate

• Application to Real Settings
• Objectives Upon completion of this activity,
  participants will be able to
• Identify basic tenets of Adult Learning Theory
• Give examples of how Adult Learning Theory is
  applied
• to Medical Education
• Incorporate the principles into your own
  instructional situation
• Marilla Svinicki
• Educational Psychology
• UT Austin

2
Todays possible ideas

• Traditional Adult Learning principles
• Basic tenets and their relationship to learning
• Application to your situation
• Other not-so traditional learning theories to
  consider (if we get there)

3
Interest check

• How would you rate your own prior knowledge about
  traditional adult learning principles?
• 1 not enough 3 just enough 5 more than enough
• Are you more interested in practice or theory?
• 1 practice 3 both 5 theory

4
Making this more concrete

• Im not that kind of doctor, so
• You have to be the expert in your subject matter.
• Select a teaching situation to which you would
  like to apply todays content.
• Ask if it doesnt seem to fit and well problem
  solve around it.

5
When adults need to learn

• Imagine that you want to learn a new skill or
  content area.
• Think about what usually triggers that desire to
  learn.
• Think about how you would go about it.
• Think about what would help you.
• Think about what might get in your way.

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Traditional adult learning Andragogys 6
principles

• Movement from dependency toward increasing
  self-directedness.
• A reservoir of experience that is a rich resource
  for learning.
• Focus on coping with real-life tasks or problems.
• Education as a means to develop increased
  competence.
• A need to know the reason to learn something.
• The most potent motivators for adult learning are
  internal, such as self-esteem.
• Knowles, et al. 1998

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What are the implications of adult learning
theory, part I?

• Adults have
• a lot of prior knowledge to draw on, for both
  good and bad
• (cognitive theory)
• more strategies to try and more well-practiced
  strategies, for both good and bad
• (meta-cognitive theory)
• What are the implications of these
  characteristics for the teaching situation you
  selected earlier?

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What are the implications of adult learning
theory, part II?

• Adults are
• more insistent on addressing their own goals
  than the instructors
• (motivation theories)
• more interested in hands-on, practice-related
  activities than theory
• (motivation theories)
• usually aware of what is possible in terms of
  learning
• (epistemological theory)
• more self-aware, for both good and bad
• (reflective practitioner theory)
• What are the implications of these
  characteristics for the teaching situation you
  selected earlier?

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Some possible concerns

• Adult learning theory hasnt had a solid research
  basis because of its origins in practice.
• Adult learning theory has developed apart from
  much of the mainstream psychological research on
  learning and motivation.
• Adult learning theory is focused on the
  individual as the unit of analysis, but doesnt
  address the group learning situations that are
  becoming more common.

10
How do these ideas work for you?

• Discussion of participant observations.

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Some other interesting theories

• Cognitive apprenticeship (Collins, Brown and
  Newman, 1989)
• learning through modeling an expert
• Communities of practice (Wenger, 1998)
• learning through participation in a community
• Case-based reasoning (Kolodner and Guzdial, 2000)
• learning through the organization of concrete
  experiences
• Distributed cognition (Salomon, 1995)
• the group as the learning unit