The Context of Adult Learning
INSPIRING CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE MINDS
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
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.
INSPIRING CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE MINDS
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”.
INSPIRING CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE MINDS
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).
INSPIRING CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE MINDS
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
INSPIRING CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE MINDS
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.
INSPIRING CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE MINDS
Adult Learning
Concept
• Experiential learning & problem-based
learning (PBL)
• Independent & self-directed learning
(SDL)
• Andragogy
• Communities of practice (CoP)
INSPIRING CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE MINDS
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
INSPIRING CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE MINDS
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
INSPIRING CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE MINDS
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 group’s learning process
INSPIRING CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE MINDS
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
INSPIRING CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE MINDS
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
INSPIRING CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE MINDS
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.
INSPIRING CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE MINDS
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.
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 learner’s
experience
What they bring as little worth
Use of text, audiovisuals to gain
experience of teacher
Primary techniques include: AV
presentation, lecture, assigned reading
Learner’s 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
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 twentyfirst century.
From Andragogy to Heutagogy
Passive
Teacher
Heutagogy
100%
T
E
A
C
H
E
R
Active
Teacher’
Active
Student
Synergogy
50%
Andragogy
0
%
Pedagogy
STUDENT
Passive
Student
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
INSPIRING CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE MINDS
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
Quasieducational
organizations
e.g. proprietary
schools &
community-based
agencies
E.g. community
organizations
Categories of
Learning
Provider
Non-educational
organizations
e.g. business &
industry.
Educational
institutions
E.g. universities,
colleges
INSPIRING CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE MINDS