The Adult Learner
“Theories of Teaching”
Chapter 5
Theories of learning: the ways we learn
Theories of teaching: the ways a person influences learning
Teaching Concepts Derived from Learning Theories of Children
Three families of learning theory (led Hilgard to identify 20 universally accepted principles):
 Stimulus-Response
 Cognitive
 Personality
and resulted in some consensus regarding the role of the teacher.
Gagne specified eight functions of the instructional situation which affect the learner and must be managed by the
teacher. These are external conditions of learning that, when combined with certain prerequisite capabilities within the
learner, bring about the desired change in performance.
 Presenting the stimulus
 Directing attention and other learner activities
 Providing a model for terminal performance
 Furnishing external prompts
 Guiding the direction of thinking
 Inducing transfer of knowledge
 Assessing learning attainments
 Providing feedback
The role of the teacher is that of a behavior shaper.
Teaching Concepts Derived from Learning Theories of Adults – very different from those used with children
Carl Rogers – traditional modes of teaching work best in an unchanging environment. In our ever-changing world, the
aim of education must be the facilitation of learning. The role of the teacher is then that of a facilitator of learning,
and the critical element in performing this role is the personal relationship with the learner. This requires three
attitudinal qualities:
 Realness or genuineness
 Non-possessive caring
 Empathic understanding and sensitive and accurate listening
Guidelines for a facilitator of learning:
 Establish a mood of trust
 Elicit and clarify the purposes of the learner
 Rely on the desire of the student to implement his/her meaningful purposes as the motivation behind significant
learning
 Organize and make easily available a range of resources for learning
 Act as a flexible resource to be used by the student
 Be willing to accept both intellectual content and emotional attitudes (rationalizations and intellectualizing), as
expressed by the learner
 Be a participant learner, expressing views as one individual only
 Initiate personal sharing
1


Remain alert to expressions of deep/strong feeling (interpersonal attitudes) and bring them into the open for
constructive understanding
Recognize and accept one’s own personal limitations
Maslow – emphasized the teacher’s responsibility for providing safety
Goodwin Watson – guidelines for the facilitation of learning:
 Our “readiness” to learn is contingent upon many factors, including
o Adequate existing experience to permit the new to be learned
o Adequate significance and relevance to the learner
o Freedom from discouragement or the threat of failure
 We learn best that which we participate in selecting and planning ourselves
Houle – Education is a cooperative rather than an operative art (operative art controlled by the person using the art,
cooperative art guiding/directing a natural entity – farmers, physicians, educators)
Tough – composite picture of the ideal helper (in adult learning):
 Warm and loving
 Regards the learner as an equal
 Creates a relaxed atmosphere
 Has confidence in the learner’s ability to make appropriate plans and arrangements for learning
 Views interaction with the learner as a dialogue
 Is an open and growing person
 Is himself frequently a learner
John Dewey – concepts of teaching – experience is always the starting point in the educational process, never the
result
 Experience
 Democracy
 Continuity – takes something from what has gone before and modifies what will come after
 Interaction – The trouble with traditional education was not that it emphasized the external conditions that
enter into the control of the experiences, but that it paid so little attention to the internal factors which also
decide what kind of experience is had.
Teaching through Inquiry
Jerome Bruner – The will to learn is a trait that exists in all people. Three roles of teachers:
 Communicators of knowledge
 Models who inspire
 Symbols of education






Are there materials that will increase a student’s desire to learn?
How can a teacher enhance the student’s will to learn?
What is the most effective method of presentation for the material? (enactive mode – action on the part of the
learner, iconic mode – process of mentally organizing material, and symbolic mode – use of symbols, such as
language)
Are the learning materials appropriate for the level of the student?
What is the optimal presentation sequence?
How will student successes and failures be addressed?
2
Hypothetical mode of teaching (where students engage in acts of discovery) has four benefits over the expository mode
of teaching:
 Increase in intellectual powers
 Shift from extrinsic to intrinsic rewards
 Learning the heuristics of discovery
 Making material more readily accessible in memory
Postman and Weingartner - characteristics of teachers using the Inquiry Method:
 The inquiry teacher is interested in students developing their own criteria or standards for judging the quality,
precision, and relevance of ideas.
 He assumes one is always in the process of acquiring skills, assimilating new information, formulating or refining
generalizations. Thus, he is always cautious about defining the limits of learning.
 Recognizes that learning does not occur with the same intensity in any two people.
 Lessons develop from the responses of students and not from a previously determined “logical” structure.
Rather than being frustrated by wrong answers or false starts , these are seen as opportunities for better
lessons.
 Concerned with the processes of thought, rather than the end results of thought.
 Does not feel compelled to “cover ground.”
 Questions, activities and assignments are aimed at having students clarify a problem, make observations
relevant to a solution, and make generalizations based on their observations.
 Measures success in terms of behavioral changes in students:
o Frequency with which they ask questions
o Increase in the relevancy and cogency of their questions
o Frequency and convictions of challenges made to assertions by the teacher, other students, or materials
o Willingness to suspend judgment when they have insufficient data
o Willingness to modify or change position when data warrants it
o Increase in tolerance for diverse answers
o Ability to apply generalizations, attitudes and information to novel situations
Teaching through Modeling
Gage – Learning through imitation seems to be especially appropriate for tasks that have little cognitive structure
(behavioral modification, social learning, and self-directed endeavors).
Observations on self-directed endeavors:
 The selection of well-defined objectives (intermediate and ultimate) is an essential aspect of the program. Goals
must be specified in sufficiently detailed behavioral terms to provide adequate guidance for the actions that
must be taken daily to attain desired outcomes.
 To further increase goal commitment, participants are asked to make contractual agreements to practice selfcontrolling behaviors in their daily activity.
 Satisfaction derived from evident changes help to sustain successful endeavors.
Perspective Transformation/Critical Reflectivity
It is not sufficient for adult education to satisfy the identified learning needs of individuals, organizations, and society.
Rather, they should seek to help adult learners transform their very way of thinking about themselves and their world.
Brookfield – perspective transformation can be achieved through the development of competence in “critical
reflectivity.”
3
Significant personal learning: that learning in which adults come to reflect on their self-images, change their selfconcepts, question their previously internalized norms, and reinterpret their current and past behaviors from a new
perspective.
Significant personal learning entails fundamental change in learners and leads them to redefine and reinterpret their
personal, social and occupational worlds. They may come to explore…domains not previously perceived as relevant to
themselves.
Effective facilitation will challenge learners to examine their previously held values, beliefs and behaviors, and confront
ones they may not want to yet consider. But, this will not be done in an adversarial or threatening manner, and should
not be avoided for fear learners will leave the program. It is a normal part of learning, yet is sometimes ignored in adult
learning.
Change Theory
Organizations have:
 Work purpose – to get things done
 Human purpose – social system that serves to help people meet human needs and achieve human goals, When
this is absent, people tend to withdraw from it.
Adult education is a means available to organizations to further both purposes (achievement of skills and competencies
to perform needed tasks, and to help achieve self-actualization)
The quality of learning that takes place in an organization is affected by the kind of organization it is. An organization’s
environment can either facilitate or inhibit learning.
Organizations (and individuals) teach by everything they do, and often teach opposite lessons in their organizational
operation (daily interactions) than what they teach in their educational programs.
Adult education theorists place emphasis on building an education environment in institutions/organizations that
undertake to help people learn which is characterized by:
 Respect for personality
 Participation in decision-making
 Freedom of expression and availability of information
 Mutuality of responsibility in defining goals, planning and conducting activities, and evaluating
An educative environment in our democratic society must exemplify democratic values/philosophy:
 Concern for the development of persons
 Conviction as to the worth of every individual
 Faith that people will make the right decisions for themselves given the necessary information and support
 Precedence to the growth of people over the accomplishment of things when these two values are in conflict
 Spirit of mutual trust
 Openness of communication
 Attitude of helpfulness and cooperation
 Willingness to accept responsibility
Eduard Lindeman – The chief distinction between conventional and adult education is to be found in the learning
process itself. None but the humble become good teachers of adults. In an adult class the student’s experience counts
for as much as the teacher’s knowledge….Indeed, in some of the best adult classes it is sometimes difficult to discover
who is learning most, the teacher or the students.
4