Government Information in the 21rst Century

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Government Information in the 21rst Century

• Teaching and Training the Adult Learner

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Characteristics of learners

• Aptitude
• Motivation
• Cognitive development
• Psycho-social development
• Learning styles
• Gender, ethnicity, social class

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Characteristics of adult learners

• Andragogy v. Pedagogy
• Life span development
• New passages
• Generations

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Malcolm Knowles

• Five crucial assumptions about the
  characteristics of adult learners that differ
  from the assumptions about child learners
• 1. Self-concept
• Move from dependency toward being self directed.
• 2. Experience
• Accumulation of a growing reservoir of experience
  that becomes an increasing resource for learning.
• 3. Readiness to learn
• Readiness to learn increasing orientation toward
  the developmental tasks of social roles.
• 4. Orientation to learning changes
• Time perspective shift from postponed
  application of knowledge to immediacy of
  application
• Orientation toward learning shifts from
  subject-centeredness to problem centeredness.
• 5. Motivation to learn
• As a person matures the motivation to learn is
  internal (Knowles 198412).

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Lifespan development

• Cognitive
• Mental processes of knowing, which include
  imagining, perceiving, reasoning, and problem
  solving
• Biological
• Bodily changes, maturation, and growth
• Psychosocial
• Emotions, personality and social interactions and
  expectations

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Adaptation throughout life depends on

• How well each of us negotiates the internal and
  external factors that enhance or constrain our
  abilities to reach our full potentials
• How we build on strengths to transcend these
  limitations over time
• Life consists not in holding good cards but in
  playing those you hold well. Josh Billings

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Passages and new passages

• Longer productive life span
• Expectation of second, even third adult careers
• Generations
• Differences in behaviors, expectations, and
  approach to information seeking
• Baby boomers
• Gen-X, Gen-Y, Millennials

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Learning styles

• TRiM (3 modes) linguistic, nonlinguistic,
  affective
• VAK (sensory) Visual, audial, kinesthetic

http//www.nwlink.com/donclark/hrd/styles.html
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Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

• Based on work of Carl Jung identification of
  distinct personality patterns
• MBTI widely used instrument can be of help in
  understanding individual differences.
• 1. Extroversion (E) versus Introversion (I) 
• 2. Sensing (S) versus iNtuition (N)
• 3. Thinking (T) versus Feeling (F)
• 4. Judging (J) versus Perceptive (P)

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http//www.nwlink.com/donclark/hrd/styles.html
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Intelligences

• Gardners Multiple intelligences
• Verbal Linguistic
• Logical-mathematical
• Musical Spatial
• Bodily Kinesthetic
• Interpersonal
• Intrapersonal
• Naturalist

• Golemans Emotional intelligence
• Motivation
• Resilience

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Lenses

• Add to understanding assist in strategy
  development
• Life cycle development
• Learning style
• Multiple intelligences
• Emotional intelligence
• Also
• Moral, aesthetic development
• Ethnicity and race (cultural experience)
• Gender (voice ways of understanding)

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Group learning

• Learning characteristics of individual
• Learning characteristics of group
• Dynamic
• Interactive
• Mediated
• Peer-to-peer
• Outcome-oriented
• Competency-driven

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Professional education 3-tier model

• Cognitive
• Core, theory, philosophy, best practices
• Experiential
• Practical, Internships, Service Learning
• Holistic
• Reflection, personal meaning-making and mastery

Sullivan, W. M. (2007, Keynote Address Tuesday
January 16, 2007, 830am-1000am). The Civic Life
of Information Teaching Professionalism for the
Knowledge Age. Paper presented at the Association
for Library and Information Science Education
Annual Conference Promoting Excellence in
Library and Information Science Education,
Seattle, WA.
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7 effective training strategies

• Behavioral
• Cognitive
• Inquiry
• Mental models
• Group dynamics
• Virtual reality
• Holistic

James R. Davis Adelaide B. Davis, Effective
Training Strategies A Comprehensive Guide to
Maximizing Learning in Organizations. San
Francisco, CA. Berrett-Koehler Publishers,
1998 Davis, J. R., and Cerqueira, D. A. (1999).
Assessing the results of training The case of
water sanitation in Brazil COPASA MG. In T. K.
Hodges (Ed.), Measuring learning and performance
(pp. 107-114). Alexandria VA American Society
for Training and Development.
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Strategy implementation

• Best use (re key learning task)
• Theory
• Participant role
• Facilitator role
• Assessment
• See handout for details

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Seven Strategies
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Learning summary

• Interactive
• Competency-based
• Individual and in groups
• Applied
• Reflective

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References

• http//www.infed.org/lifelonglearning/b-andra.htm
• http//www.learner.org/discoveringpsychology/devel
  opment/
• http//www.nwlink.com/donclark/hrd/styles.html

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Questions?