Adult Learning

Video Transcription

In this tutorial, we'll explore the concept of adult learning. We'll begin by just getting in the right mindset by thinking of teachers as adult learners. I'll share with you the history of adult learning, and we'll talk about how adult education is different from more traditional education. We'll learn about the three overarching theories that guide our discussion of adult learning, and then we'll think about how adult learning specifically applies to teachers. Let's get started.

Let's begin by realizing the importance of thinking of teachers as adult learners. As teachers, when we engage in our professional responsibilities everyday we're not only facilitating students learning, but we really are receivers of learning all the time as well. So interestingly while we definitely deeply understand the pedagogy that is involved in teaching our students and we also are always learning from our colleagues, and from our students' parents, and from our administrators, we don't always focus as much on understanding our own learning and understanding how other adults learn or that idea of andragogy.

When we have such a solid understanding of how students learn and how to create a learning environment that helps students be more successful, why is it then that sometimes we struggle so much in helping other teachers to learn? We need to understand how adults learn so that we can guide our practice in meeting the needs of the adult learners that were going to be encountering. Students and adults just learn differently. Our situations are different, and so we are going to explore that throughout this tutorial and throughout the rest of this course.

So as we implement these adult learning theories into our professional learning, professional development, and all of the professional growth opportunities both that we encounter ourselves and that we're creating for our colleagues. We want to focus on building self-efficacy. That's our belief in our ability to accomplish the goals that we've set for ourselves. And self-efficacy really is crucial in implementing successful site-based management.

Whatever the goal of your site based management plan is, if it's that you want to implement some change in your district, if you want to improve student learning, or sustain the continuous improvement efforts that you have going on, if you want to build capacity in your district-- whatever your goals might be for your district on the whole, for the individual schools, or even the individual teachers in your district, that self-efficacy factor is so important.

Let's explore the history of adult learning so we understand where this all began. The term "adult learners" actually was used as far back as the 1830s. And if you searched the educational literature of the past century, you will see a wide variety of different adult learning models, varying sets of principles and assumptions that guide these models, different theories and different explanations that all helped to create this knowledge base that we have for that the concept of adult learning.

So we use this term "adult learning" simply to differentiate between the two different types of learners. We want to distinguish the adult learners that were encountering, our colleagues for example, from the children who are sitting in our classrooms. Because we're going to approach those two different situations differently. Approaches to adult education were based mostly in information that came from psychology up until the 1970s. The reason that a shift started to happen in the 1970s is because in 1968, Malcolm Knowles, who was a YMCA adult educator, started to formulate some new adult learning theories based on his observations of educating adults versus educating people who were younger.

So here are some key ideas then to keep in mind as we begin to explore these various theories of adult education. Adult education is not necessarily defined by a clearly distinguished age group or even by a clearly defined mission. It's not like elementary and secondary education where we have specific ages of students that move through those educational fields, and it's not like higher education where there's typically a very clearly defined mission. Instead, it's just sort of a more broad, wider ranging term that we use to describe the various groups of people who are going to be engaging in educational opportunities outside of the more traditional K-12 or post-secondary educational environment.

And really what's more important than defining this age group or defining the specific adult education mission is just understanding that education for adults needs to be different than education for children because the life situations that adults are coming from are so vastly different from the life experiences and situations of children. The impact of this is that adults' learning needs are just going to be very different from the learning needs of children who are sitting in our classrooms. Our learners are going to have experiences that are much more varied, much more widely ranging than the students in front of us in most cases.

And another idea to consider is that adults are at different developmental stages than children are. The children who are sitting in our classroom are, in most cases, dependent on others for their care in their everyday lives. Most of their time during the day is spent on learning. That's their focus as they go throughout their days. We are trying to prepare them for adulthood and responsibilities that will come along with that.

Contrast that to adult learners who already have gone through that whole process. And so now most of the adults who are considered adult learners have all of these other roles and responsibilities. They likely have a career-- possibly military commitments, or community commitments, and family responsibilities that all have to come into play along with their educational experiences. And so we just need to keep in mind that adult learners have very different life experiences than learners who are children, and so the approach to education needs to look different for adult learners. And this really is an idea that has been observed consistently all the way back to the beginning of the field of adult education.

So looking at the specific theories that guide the principles of adult learning, there actually are three different overarching theories. It's important to understand that there's not just one single theory of learning that we can apply to all adult learners. But if we do have an understanding of all three of these different theories, that can help us to create professional development opportunities that are a lot more effective for all of the adult learners who are going to be participating.

One of these theories is andragogy. This theory is based on six key assumptions that we will explore in upcoming tutorials, and it's just sort of an overall focus on the art and science of helping adults to become effective learners. The next theory is self-directed learning, and this theory focuses on having individual learners really take the initiative, take the ownership of planning, and carrying out, and evaluating their own learning process. And finally is transformational learning. In this theory, we want individual learners to actually change the way that they think about themselves fundamentally and the way that they view their world, and so this theory actually involves a whole shift of consciousness regarding the learning process.

So how do these different theories and the overall view of adult learning apply to teachers specifically? Well, teachers are typically very well versed in pedagogy-- focusing on our students' learning needs. So gaining an understanding of adult learning as well is going to help us focus on that andragogy element-- how do adults learn. And that's going to be critical because as teachers we are engaging in adult learning opportunities all the time as part of our profession, in our professional learning communities and our school or district professional development, perhaps through peer coaching, or through critical friends, or whatever elements of adult learning are built into your district. Even something as simple as just collaborating with the teacher next door or with your grade level group-- all of these situations are presenting themselves constantly as part of our career.

And so if we have an understanding of these adult learning theories, that can just help us to be a lot more effective in our practice. And it can also help us to become more responsive to the needs of the other adult learners that were going to be coming in contact with regularly.

Again, realize that we're not just facilitators of learning in our jobs. We're receivers of learning also. And so understanding these adult learning theories is going to really help to increase our effectiveness and our overall experience everyday as we are carrying out our professional responsibilities.

So here's a chance for you to stop and reflect. What types of learning opportunities are built into your everyday work environment? Are you a member of a professional learning community? Do you engage in peer coaching? Can you see how an understanding of these adult learning theories might help you to be even more effective in that role?

For more information on how to apply what you learned in this video, please view the additional resources section that accompanies this video presentation. The additional resources section includes hyperlinks useful for applications of the course material, including a brief description of each resource. Thanks for watching. Have a great day.