Teaching Adults

Learner-centered Instruction

Mary Prentice, Ph.D. Department Head- Educational Management and Development

Traditional Pedagogy

• Learning is often compulsory (public school attendance).

• Learning is teacher-directed.

• Instruction is subject-centered (for example, math) and not application-centered.

Traditional Pedagogy• Motivation to learn is external, through

rewards and punishments (for example, grades).

• Assume learner needs outside direction by a teacher.

• Instruction involves the transfer of prescribed subject matter through lectures and memorization.

Andragogy: Adult Learning

• Adults have a lot of previous experiences and we learn by linking new information to our past knowledge & experiences.

• Learning is often voluntary (they choose to be in the classroom).

• Learning is self-directed.

Andragogy: Adult Learning

• Instruction is task or problem-centered.

• Motivation to learn is by internal incentives (for example, curiosity and personal interest).

• Instructional design involves subject matter that is life-centered, task-centered, problem centered.

Andragogy: Four Assumptions

1. As people mature, self-concept moves from dependence to self-direction.

2. Their growing reservoir of experience begins to serve as a resource for learning.

3. They begin to want to apply what they have learning right away to life’s real challenges.

4. Orientation toward learning shifts from one of subject/topic centeredness to one of problem centeredness.

Androgogy = Learner is Active

• Adult instruction needs to center more on the process and less on the content.

– For example, instead of memorizing a theory, students get into small groups and apply the theory to an example from their own experience.

–

Process Content

Adult Learning is Circular

Circle of Adult Learning: Example

Concrete Experience: Doing/Having an Experience• Student experiences (in small groups, each group has to figure out how to create a paragraph that

has a topic, specific evidence, and an ending. Groups are given 10 sentences to work with).

Reflective Observation• Student reflects and observes while working on the paragraph with others and

Abstract Conceptualization• by doing this begins to learn the concept. With this new learning,

Active Experimentation• the student actively tries out the knowledge by writing her or his own paragraph.

Concrete Experience/Reflective Observation• This provides a new experience that the student reflects on and learns more about the concept, and

so forth.

Traditional Teaching: Linear Instruction

• Teacher presents information (the parts of a paragraph), then

• Learner memorizes information, then • Learner is tested on information, then • Learner is rewarded (good grade) or punished

(bad grade).

Outcome: Adults do not learn as much when they are not involved

Andragogy: Teachers’ Role

• Requires that the teacher give up the role of holder of all information.

• Teacher recognizes that the learners need guidance in learning, but that learners have their own knowledge that they bring with them.

Andragogy: Teachers’ Role

• Requires teachers to understand that adults need to know why they are learning something. Adults’ motivation is based on curiosity and personal interest or on the need to use the information in the near future.

– Example: I study Italian either because I am interested or because I need to speak or understand Italian in the near future.

Four Principles Andragogical Instruction is . . .

1. Relevant—adults learn best when they see the relevance to their experience of the concept being taught.

2. Engaged—adults retain more when they are engaged in the process of discovery instead of being the passive recipient of information.

3. Active—the learning process should replicate as closely as possible the environment within which the skill or knowledge will be applied.

4. Learner-centered—apply learning to real-world examples instead of taking standard tests.

How to Know it is Andragogical Education?

• Ask: what do I want the student to be able to do by the end of the semester?

– Example: I want students to create grade school level culturally responsive learning activities in each subject (math, reading, science, etc.).

• To achieve this, in each class, include engaged, active, learner-centered activities.

Andragogy: DOING is LEARNING

Please form small groups and discuss the following questions:

1. What is the best learning experience you have had?

2. In one of the classes you teach, what is one concept that you can turn into an active learning experience?

References

Atherton, J. S. (2011). Learning and Teaching; Knowles' Andragogy: An Angle on Adult Learning. Retrieved from http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/knowlesa.htm

Whitmyer, C. (1999). Andragogy versus Pedagogy. San Francisco, CA: FutureU Press.

More about Malcolm Knowles

http://www.nl.edu/academics/cas/ace/resources/malcolmknowles.cfm

http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-knowl.htm

http://www.newhorizons.org/future/Creating_the_Future/crfut_knowles.html