Adult educator comes from all walks of life with different views about learning and their learners. Adult educator can improve their methods by examining and reflecting on this belief. This paper will look into my philosophical position on adult education including my beliefs over the last nine years. My beliefs as an adult educator fall within the category of progressive and humanistic adult education which contributes to the values examined.
I will be discussing Learning to learn; how a teacher belief and behaviour can influence the classroom; collaborative learning and opportunities for learning. I will be providing examples of how my own beliefs and assumptions have shaped my practice and why it’s important to recognise that everyone is cable of developing learning to learn regardless of age and background.
As an adult educator my philosophical position is between progressive and humanistic (refer Appendix 1). Over the years my position has shifted due to changing job role. Five years ago my classroom practices were to control my environment with the aim to achieving the learning outcomes. Every lesson involved a typical demonstrate of the skill followed by the students attempt the task through a process of trial and error and finally feedback and reinforcement of the desired behaviour was provided this is what a philosophy outlined in behavioural adult education provide as outlined by Elias & Merriam (1995) in Zinn (1998, p. 70).
Over the last nine years have developed on a professional and personal level and that my stance on adult education is more in line with guiding and facilitating learning; implementing past experience; problem solving and helping adult learners unlock their potential.
Learning to learn is as i...
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...ucation Research.
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Tusting, K. & Barton, D. (2006). Models of adult learning: a literature review: Institute of Education University of London: National Research and Development Centre for adult literacy and numeracy.
Zinn, L.(1998). Identifying your philosophical orientation, and Philosphy of adult education inventory. In M. Galbraith (Ed.), Adult learning methods: A guide for effective instruction (2nd ed., pp. 37-72). Malabar, F.L: R. E. Kreiger.
Horton was interested in education for social change, he advocated that education be grounded in the learner’s experiences and included the use of questions to stimulate self-examination as well as examination of social systems. Horton’s approach to adult education has several key features. The key features in Horton’s approach are leadership development, social analysis, experience, learning and social meaning. (Pyles, 2013) Myles Horton’s organizing framework is a transformative approach anchored in the belief that societal change necessarily entrails a change in consciousness. (Pyles, 2013) Horton and his cohorts believed that people themselves are the authorities on their experiences and thus on their own learning needs and educational agendas. (Pyles, 2013)
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).
As I researched and studied the 5 teaching and learning philosophies. I believe the humanistic philosophy is the most appropriate for adult learners. However, dependent upon our adult learners, in order to be an effective adult educator we must remain flexible and be willing to adjust our teaching style and delivery method. In doing so we must utilize basic fundamentals from each of the five learning philosophies to reach our adult learners allowing opportunity for positive learning to taking place for both the learner as well as the teacher.
What is andragogy? Andragogy consists of a theoretical model of six assumptions that was developed by Malcolm Knowles in order to “distinguish adult learning and adult education from other areas of education” (Mirriam, Caffarella, & Baumgartner, 2007, p. 83). And so, andragogy might also be defined in terms of the efforts of “multiple researchers and scholars” (Henschke, 2011, p. 35) searching for a way to “establish andragogy as a proven theory and strong method for teaching adults” (Henschke, 2011, p. 35). But why is the topic of andragogy important for both adult learners and teachers? It is important because in order to effectively teach adult learners we must first “be cognizant of the differences which adult students bring to the classroom” (Schultz, 2012, p. 1) and to also understand that among adult learners, there exist “varying expectations and reasons for learning” (Schultz, 2012, p. 1). Andragogy is more¬over important to adult learners and teachers because both “learners and educators alike can use [it] to strengthen the learning transaction” (Mirriam et al., 2007, p. 84). With this brief definition of andragogy, along with the corresponding reason for its importance in mind, what now follows is what this paper is going to be about. The topic of this paper is an evaluation of whether or not the traditional learning environment is conducive to learning for adult learners as opposed to the andragogical environment. And the dual purpose hereof is to first briefly relate my own personal experience in a traditional learning context (under the heading of a ‘Traditional Learning Environment’), and then to reflect upon whether or not that traditional context (this time under the heading of ‘Andragogy Reflection’) i...
This essay is to consider and discuss how I might apply the theories of Malcolm Knowles, in my own current or future training work. The essay will include a brief biography on Malcolm Knowles, and his theory on adult education / learning andragogy, to include definitions of andragogy and pedagogy, which has been the mainstay of all education theory for hundreds of years.
Hadley, H. (1975). Development of an instrument to determine adult educators' orientations: Andragogical or pedagogical. (Doctoral dissertation, Boston University). Dissertation Abstracts International, 35, 7595a.
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)
...velopment. The employers learn how they can access a new knowledge, examine multiple ways to learn, and more effectively plan their future learning. Adult educator may help the employers to identify condition how to learn more effectively. For example the recipient of welfare are leashing to get a jog and keep the job for the extended time period.
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.
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...
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Whitton, D., Barker, K., Nosworthy, Sinclair, C., Nanlohy, P. (2010). Learning for teaching: Teaching for learning. South Melbourne: Cengage Learning
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.
The facilitation of this model allows adult learners to be active and self-directed in their learning.
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...