Adult Education Theories and Principles: understanding how adults learn

1. Adult Education Theories and Principles: understanding how adults learn Lynn Atkinson Tovar Ed.D.

2. Adult Education “is defined as any course or educational activity taken part-time and reported as adult education by respondents seventeen years old an over” (U. S. Department of Education, 1986)

3. Father of Adult Education-Malcolm Knowles Self-Directed • Andragogical model of instruction • Learner-centered vs. instructor-centered • Learner is viewed as a mutual partner in each of these steps • Diagnosing learning needs • Formulating objectives • Designing a pattern of learning experiences • Evaluating results

4. Andragogy • Adults learn differently than children • Understanding learners are not children they should not be treated as such • Assumption is that we learn by two methods • Visually • Interactively • Adults seek out learning experiences in order to cope with specific life changing events • They are certain to engage actively in any learning that promises to help them

5. Andragogy-4 different assumptions about adult learners • Self-concept • Experience • Readiness to learn • Orientation to learn • Motivation to learn

6. Adults want to participate actively in the assessment of their own needs and in planning their own learning activities. They want to participate in establishing the goals and objectives of their learning and the evaluation of their learning.

7. Principles of Adult Learning • Present new information=meaningful and practical • Present information in a manner that permits mastery • Present only one idea or concept at a time=able to integrate it into existing knowledge • Use feedback and frequent summarization to facilitate and foster retention and recall.

8. Types of Adult Learning • Knowledge Learning • Skill Learning • Attitude Learning

9. Knowles:Outlines 4 Basic characteristics of educational environments • 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 evaluation

10. Knowles (1980) states: “the ideal situation is when a group is small enough for all participates to be involved in every aspect of planning every phase of the learning activity. The teacher, of course, retains responsibility for facilitating the planning by suggesting procedures and coordinating the process. But conditions are likely to be right for this maximum degree of participation only in small courses, action projects, workshops, and club programs. With larger groups the ideal situation can be approximated, however, by an imaginative use of sub groupings”.

11. What motivates adults to learn? • Becoming a better-informed person 37% • Preparing for a new job or occupation 36% • For the job I held at that time 32% • Spending my spare time more enjoyably 20% • Meeting new and interesting people 15% • Carrying out everyday task at home 13% • Getting away from the daily routine 10% • Carrying out everyday task away from home 10%

12. Barriers to learning…. • Not enough time to participate in educational activities • Individual and personal problems (including cost) • Too difficult to succeed in educational activities • Against the social norms to participate in educational activities • Negative feelings toward the institution offering instruction • Negative experiences with educational activities • Results of educational activities not valued • Indifference to educational activities • Unawareness of educational activities available

13. Adult Education Theorist • Malcolm Knowles • Jack Mezirow • Patricia Cross • G. Grow • Howard Gardner • Howard McClusky

14. Learning is understood as the process of using a prior interpretation to construe a new or revised interpretation of the meaning of one’s experiences as a guide to future action. We appropriate symbolic models, composed of images and conditioned affective reactions acquired earlier through the culture or the idiosyncrasies of parents or caretakers “Frame of reference”-we make analogies to interpret the meaning of our new sensory experience Learning may be intentional, the results of deliberate inquiry, incidental, a by-product of another activity involving intentional learning, or mindlessly assimilative Aspects of both intentional and incidental learning takes place outside learner awareness. Mezirow’s-Perspective Transformation

15. A belief in himself or herself A belief in his or her world All bound up with his or her affects Intuition Imagination Dreams Spirituality Empathy Emotions Assumptions What?

16. Transformation Learning- involves participating in constructive discourse to use the experience of others to assess reasons justifying these assumptions, and making an action decision based on the resulting insight. It is how we learn to negotiate and act on own purpose, values, feelings,and meanings rather than those we have uncritically assimilated from others-gain greater control over our lives as socially responsible, clear thinking decision makers

17. Cross’s Chain-of-Response Model • Participation in a learning activity is the result of a chain of responses to both psychological and environmental factors • Self-evaluation • Attitudes about education • Life events and transitions-life cycle • Graduation, marriage, retirements • Account for 83% of the motivation to participate in adult ed • Information=opportunities/barriers

18. Grow’s Model-The Staged Self-Directed Learning Model 1991 • Stage 1: learners of low self-direction who need an authority figure (teacher) to tell them what to do • Stage 2: learners of moderate self-direction who are motivated and confident but largely ignorant of the subject matter to be learned • Stage 3: learners of intermediate self-direction who have both the skills and the basic knowledge an view themselves as being both ready and able to explore a specific area with a good guide • Stage 4: learners of high self-direction who are both willing and able to plan, execute, and evaluate their own learning with or without the help of an expert.

19. Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences(1993) • Evidence for the existence of several relatively autonomous human intellectual competencies • Linguistic (capacity to use language) • Logical-mathematical (understand causal system) • Spatial (visual skills exhibited by a painter or architect) • Musical (think in music, hear patterns) • Bodily-kinesthetic ( use whole or part of body to solve problems or do something) • Interpersonal (understanding others) • Intrapersonal (Understanding of self)

20. McClusky’s Margin Theory • Adulthood is a time of growth, change and integration in which one constantly seeks balance between the amount of energy needed and the amount available. • Load of life-dissipates energy • Power of life-allows one to deal with the load • Address when learning will most likely occur rather then learning itself.

21. Theories that guide Learning • Behaviorist Theory • Cognitive Theory • Gestalt Theory • Humanistic Theory

22. Behaviorist Theory • Learner is like a machine. Input= stimulus, how it is processed.Output=the response or result of learning. • The goal of learning is to produce a certain prescribed behavior. • Pragmatic instruction, behavior modification, computer-assisted instruction and repetition.

23. Cognitive Theory • Human beings have a brain, which separates them from other living things. • Their capacity to THINK critically and solve problems • Cognitive theory encourages didactic instruction, rote memorization, and standardized testing to identify problems.

24. Gestalt Theory • Similar to cognitive • Believes that the whole is more than the sum of its parts=a gestalt • The “whole” individual is always moving back to equilibrium or more of a stable state • Gestalt theory prescribes organized and systematic instruction beginning with a simple concept and moving to the more complex.

25. Humanistic Theory • All people are unique and possess individual potential. • All people have the natural capacity to learn • Encourage each individual to develop to their full potential • Advocates for discovery model, understanding learning projects and self-directed inquiry and learning

26. Educators are aware that most learning in adulthood goes far beyond the simple memorization of facts. The expectation is that adults will somehow be able to put those facts to good use in their everyday living; whether as workers, parents, spouses, friends, and so on. Therefore, the processes of tuning and restructuring of information, as well as both declarative and procedural knowledge, become vital in adult learning.

27. Lifelong Learning • The process of learning that continues throughout one’s lifetime based on individual needs, circumstance, interests and learning skills. • The intimate relationship between learning and living is the trade mark for Adult Education. • Adult learning needs are generated by real-life problems, and adults wish to apply acquired knowledge and skills to solve these problems. • Education spread over the lifespan of the individual learner.

28. Are you facilitating and supporting lifelong learning adequately?