Andragogy Reflection: First Training
According to Merriam, Caffarella & Baumgartner, (2007), andragogy is a European concept meaning “the art and science of helping adults learn”. (p. 84) It is based on six of different assumptions about the adult learner (Merriam, Caffarella, & Baumgartner, 2007, p. 84). Andragogy is important for not only the adult learner, but the adult educator as well. It is important to adult educators because it helps them with setting a proper climate for their students, helps get the students more involved in their own specific needs from particular classes, and it gives the student and teacher mutual respect (Wood, unknown). By having mutual respect in a teacher/student relationship, it helps students the support they need to be a productive student. When working with adult learners, having mutual respect between teacher and learner and having the proper climate can contribute to more interaction when giving a presentation on subjects that may not be very interesting.
Traditional Learning Context
Every year MidMichigan Health holds a lecture for their employees called First Training. The training is done in a conference room at the hospital and is always cold and poorly lit. The speaker differs every year, but this year it was a nursing manager. First Training is a way for staff to freshen up on their communication skill; not only with patients, but with other staff. The audience that attends first training is all employees of the hospital, from housekeeping to managers. This training is mandatory for all employees every year, and if you do not attend one of the sessions a write up will be their future. The purpose of the training is to make sure that staff are following the steps of FIRST, F= Friend...
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...r (Merriam, Caffarella, & Baumgartner, 2007, p. 84). Adult learning is different from traditional learning because adults are more self-directing, self-motivated and is more eager to learn. Adult learners need to feel like they are treated equal, rather than feeling lower than the educator. Adult learners need to have mutual respect and a proper climate to ensure that they stay focused on the topics being discussed.
Works Cited
AlleyDog.com. (2013). Social Roles. Retrieved from http://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.php?term=Social%20Roles
Merriam, S. B., Caffarella, R. S., & Baumgartner, L. M. (2007). Learning in adulthood: A comprehensive guide. San Fransisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Wood, D. (unknown). Andragogy: appreciating the characteristics of the adult learner. Memphis, Tennessee. Retrieved from http://hawaii.hawaii.edu/tlc/tutor%20training/ANDRAGOGY.htm
Merriam, S.B., Caffarella, R.S. &Baumgartner (2007) Learning in Adulthood: A comprehensive guide, san Francisco, CA:Jossey-Bass
[According to a cohort participant,] cohorts are created not born. They are successful when everyone works collaboratively and collectively on improving their own and others' learning experiences. It takes self-responsibility, patience, courage, humor, commitment, sensitivity, and a lot of hard work to create such an enriching learning experience for everybody. (Nesbit 2001, p. 3)
How to attract and retain adult students is an enduring question for providers of adult education. Adult students must juggle competing demands on their time from study, family, work, and other commitments; their learning goals are often different from those of educational institutions and providers; and their needs and aspirations may change during the education process, sometimes as a result of it. This Brief reviews recent research related to adult student recruitment and retention and provides guidelines for recruiting and retaining adult learners.
Adults are self-motivated. They learn best by building on what they already know and when they are actively engaged (Lindeman, 2010). The approach of adult education revolves around non-vocational ideals and is based on experience rather than subjects (Lindeman, 2010). It helps adults gain knowledge about their powers, capacities, and limitations (Funnell et al, 2012).
The learning process for adults is never ending and can be very challenging. As an adult educator, teaching adult learners you will face many challenges in the learning process. It is our responsibility to keep the learners engaged, and to help them to realize their full learning potential.
Many students, including myself are entering college for the first time in our lives. They experience things alien to them and have to deal with an exorbitant amount of anxiety and stress. A major stressor that stands out is learning the academic way of thinking. Reading rhetorically and writing in a formal and academic manner are terms that, until now, were entirely foreign to me. At the high school level, many students are not exposed to these processes. Plain and simple, they just don’t experience this type of thinking and learning. This in turn causes an almost fight and flight response on the student’s part. Many students that struggle through these concepts give themselves the opportunity to stand or fall on their own accord, while others shut down and leave their education in the hands of chance. Students who experience this form of struggle are usually faced with the fear of asking for help.
Mirriam, S. B., Caffarella, R. S., & Baumgartner, L. M. (2007). Learning in adulthood: A
The main body of the essay will discuss and differentiate andragogy from pedagogy, and how I might use Knowles’s theory in future training.
Hiemstra, R., & Sisco, B. (1990). Moving from pedagogy to andragogy. Foundations of Adult Education: Critical and Contemporary Issues, Retrieved from http://www-distance.syr.edu/literature.html
One theorist that is relevant to this study is Malcolm Knowles’s theory of adult learning. Though Malcom Knowles may not be the first one to introduce adult learning, he was the one that introduced andragogy in North America. (McEwen and Wills 2014). Andragogy means adult learning. The core concept of Knowles’s Adult learning theory is to create a learning environment or awareness for adults to understand why they learn .Knowles developed six main assumptions of adult learners. Those assumptions are the need to know, self- concept, experience, readiness to learn, orientation to learning and motivation. (McEwen and Wills, 2014)
A defining condition of being human is that we have to understand the meaning of our experience. For some, any uncritically assimilated explanation by an authority figure will suffice. But in contemporary societies we must learn to make our own interpretations rather than act on the purposes, beliefs, judgments, and feelings of others. Facilitating such understandings is the cardinal goal of adult education. Transformative learning develops autonomous thinking. (Mezirow 1997, p. 5)
Andragogy, made famous in the United States by Malcom Knowles in 1967, is the art and science of teaching adult learners as opposed to pedagogy which is the art and science of teaching but not distinguishing what age group (Rachel, 2002). Knowles implemented andragogy through the use of a learning contract, in which learning objectives, strategies and resources, achievement, and methods for evaluation are all determined by both the learner and instructor (2002).
Teaching the adult student is a great and unique responsibility; Andragogy preaches that teaching the adult learner takes a certain skill set and approach in order to be highly effective. The adult teaching theory and approach is based off the characteristics of the adult student. Andragogy views the adult learner as a very highly motivated student, a student ready and prepared to learn, and a student that comes to class with expectations of learning (Knowles 1984, pg12). With such a capable learner in the classroom the teacher must make the necessary adjustments. When teaching the adult learner, the teacher will have respect for their students and respect the fact that each student will have their own individual learning style. The teacher will also allow the adult student to experie...
In summary, I guess I disagree with the theory that adults learn differently than children. I think we all learn the same. I think it is the strategy that is different. I believe that the role of any good educator is to guide the learner into connecting what they are learning in the classroom to their world.
As we know, human being keep learning though all their lives, Sometimes I am thinking how we adult learning. In this book, I found them--some related concepts about adult learning and ways to Self-Direct Learning(SDL). Before reading this book. I already knew what is the adult learner is. In China, students who are over 18 years old are the adult in General Principles Of the Civil Law. In some perspectives, University education can be called adult education. It is new for me to learn this knowledge, so I chose the first eight chapters of the textbook.