The chapter, by Paulette E. Isaac of the University of Missouri in the United States of America, explains that grown-up people possess diverse styles of learning that may positively or negatively influence their education. In the chapter, Isaac discusses the strategies for assessing adult education processes and learning styles. Isaac talks about the importance of assessing the progress of adult learners to come up with appropriate adult learning facilities. The chapter informs adult educators on how to deploy various assessment procedures in addition to other considerations taken in administering adult education. This paper critiques Isaac’s chapter based on four key dimensions.
Firstly, the most engaging part of the chapter is the first topic, which is an introduction to adult learning. The chapter is divided into three main parts, including an introduction to adult education, adult learning styles, and ways of assessing adult learning. I was engaged more with the first topic because it probes the various facts that make adults want to learn. It defines the cognitive determinants ...
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).
Individuals are differ in their learning style. It is depend on how people learn based on ability to comprehend and retain information. Adult have more life experience to build on and competing responsibilities. The unique about adult learner is adult generally are more resistant to new ideas, autonomous, self-directed, goal oriented and relevancy oriented. Learning styles will be influence by their genetic make-up, previous learning experiences, culture and the society they live in. There are many ways of looking at learning styles, one of the learning style is Kolb’s experiential learning style. Kolb’s (1984) identify four types of learning styles; convergent, divergent, assimilator and accommodator. Experiential learning style is the process
Essex, Belinda and Sean O’Toole. “The Adult Learner May Really Be a Neglected Species.” Australian Journal of Adult Learning (2012) Print.
Adult learner retention continues to hold the attention of adult educators in every type of program. Although the reasons students leave and the strategies for keeping them may differ from adult basic education (ABE) to higher education, the goal of retention is the same: to keep learners in programs until they achieve their goals (Tracy-Mumford et al. 1994). In any program, adults are largely voluntary participants, but the student role is just one of many roles and responsibilities competing for their time and attention. In fact, personal reasons such as family problems, lack of child care, and job demands are often cited as the cause of withdrawal. At the same time, adults usually have pragmatic, focused reasons for participating and will leave whenever they feel their goals have been met or if they feel the program will not satisfy their goals. Personal/job factors may seem to be beyond institutional control, whereas program satisfaction is something educators can improve. This Digest provides an updated look at research on retention in adult education and suggests effective practices for different settings.
Being a teacher of adult education is a very demanding job. It requires an absolute commitment towards embedding real-life tasks into the curriculum to make learning more meaningful and purposeful for adults (Early & DeCosta, 2007, p.1). At the heart of it, teaching adults really is about being flexible enough to address the needs of an individual student; being creative enough to challenge adult students’ ways of thinking; and finally being sensitive enough to understand that some students’ paths towards higher education can be more challenging than ours (Early & DeCosta, 2007, p.2). In other words, a good teacher of adult education is a teacher who is able to inspire and motivate students to think differently, read and write meaningfully, and communicate purposefully.
Mirriam, S. B., Caffarella, R. S., & Baumgartner, L. M. (2007). Learning in adulthood: A
Merriam, S.B., Caffarella, R.S. &Baumgartner (2007) Learning in Adulthood: A comprehensive guide, san Francisco, CA:Jossey-Bass
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)
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.
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)
Analysis: having been through the adult learning experience I have realised the roll of learner and teacher in this approach. An effective teacher can facilitate the development of independence, self confidence, learning satisfaction and help students (the learner) to critical think. This experience has taught me that there are different styles of learning and teaching that I can adopt in my future.
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.
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...
Adult learning does not occur in a vacuum. What one needs or wants to learn, what opportunities are available, the manner in which one learns-all are to a large extent determined by the society in which one lives. Whenever adults are asked about their learning, they most often mention education and training programs sponsored by the workplace, colleges and universities, public schools, and other formal organizations. They first picture classrooms with “students” learning and “teachers” teaching in a highly structured format. Yet when we ask these same adults about what they have learned informally over the last year, they typically respond with descriptions of learning activities outside these formal settings. They discuss, for example, remodeling a house, which has involved everything form reading and talking...
Within the andragogical model described by Knowles, Holton, and Swanson (2015), adults need learning experiences that are different than those found in the pedagogical model. Instead of waiting for experiences that are directed and controlled by a teacher, adults need to have a clear rationale and understanding for the learning, feel past experiences are valuable, and have a developed internal system for motivation in order to help a learning experience be successful. The connection and orientation to the learning task, the readiness to learn, and self-concept are other important ideas to adult learning.