Adult Learning Theory and Teachers as Learners

Video Transcription

In this tutorial, I'll provide you with an overview of adult learning theories, and we'll begin to understand the role that these theories play in professional development and growth. We'll begin by discussing the importance of thinking of teachers as adult learners. I'll walk you through the history of adult learning and adult education. I'll then introduce to you the adult learning theories, and we'll take a closer look at how adult learning specifically impacts teachers. Let's get started.

As we begin our study of adult learning theories and adult education, it's important to realize that teachers play the unique role of being both facilitators of learning and receivers of learning. When we're working with our students, it's clearly important that we understand the pedagogy of students. But we are also always learning ourselves, through our interactions with those around us, our colleagues, and administrators, and our students' parents, for example.

So we need to understand how adults learn. In fact, this field has a name, it's called andragogy. Not only do we need to understand the differences between student learning needs and adult learning needs so that this can guide our practice in meeting the needs of adult learners, but it's also important that we understand our own learning because this can help us to be better learners ourselves.

One great reason for learning more about these adult learning theories and becoming a more effective adult student ourselves is that this process of deepening our own professional learning or our professional growth and development leads to self-efficacy, which is our belief in our ability to accomplish the goals that we've set for ourselves.

And this element of self-efficacy is crucial in implementing successful site-based management. Site-based management initiatives can be implemented for all sorts of different reasons-- to build capacity in a school or a district, to implement some sort of change, to either sustain continuous improvement efforts that have already begun, or to impact new improvements.

And whatever the overall focus of your site-based management, and, in fact, whatever level of focus you currently have, whether it's the whole district, or focused on a specific school, or even if there are goals at the individual teacher level, teacher self-efficacy is an important element in the success of these initiatives. And so making sure that teachers understand adult learning theories and consequently better understand their own learning can help us move towards that improved self-efficacy.

So let's take a look at the history of adult learning. The term adult learners actually dates back to the 1830s. In fact, if you examine the literature from the past century or so, you'll find a wide variety of models and varying sets of principles, and assumptions, and theories, and explanations that all make up our current adult learning knowledge base.

The term adult learning was coined by a German teacher named Alexander Kapp. The intent of using this term was to differentiate between the different types of learners, between learners who are children and learners who are adults. Until the 1970s, the approaches to adult learning that were available to adult educators were based mostly on information that came from the field of psychology. Specifically, it was in 1968, when an adult educator at a YMCA named Malcolm Knowles began to create some new theories about adult learning in order to distinguish it from the education of younger students or pre-adults.

One of the challenges in adult education is that it is such a large field of practice. There really aren't any clear boundaries. There is no set age group, like there is for elementary education or secondary education. There is no clearly defined mission, like there might be for a higher education institution.

But really, what's more important than defining what it is that constitutes an adult learner is to understand how the life situation of an adult is different from the life situation of a child. And we need to be aware of the implications of these different life experiences and situations on adult learning. In general, adults' life experiences are just going to be much greater and much more varied than the experiences or situations of children who are learning.

Adults' learning needs and learning interests are also going to, in most cases, be vastly different than those of learners who are children. Furthermore, adult learners are developmentally going to be in different life stages than younger learners. We expect that learning is going to be one of the core activities of a child's life. The activities that are involved in children's learning opportunities are often aimed at helping them to prepare for the responsibilities of being an adult later in life.

We need to understand that for adult learners, the learning process is going to be just one of many different activities that they engage in everyday. Adult learners are going to have many other responsibilities and other roles that they play every day. They will likely have family obligations, and career obligations, and perhaps community or military involvement, or other arenas in which they have obligations and roles to play.

So a constant that we find in the field of adult education from observers going all the way back to the beginning of the field is that a key element that differentiates adult learning from children's learning is the unique life experiences and life situations of adult learners. We know that an understanding of adult learning theories can help adult learners to be more effective learners in professional development settings.

And while there isn't a single theory of adult learning that can be applied to all adult learners, there are three major overarching theories that are going to be relevant to this particular course. The first of these theories is andragogy, which is defined as the art and science of helping adults learn. In our study of andragogy, we'll identify six key assumptions of adult learning.

Next is the theory of self-directed learning, which is guided by the idea that individual learners need to take the initiative in all stages of their own learning, from planning the learning, to carrying out the learning experiences, to evaluating their learning. And the final theory is transformational learning, which tells us that learning actually changes the way that individuals think about themselves at a fundamental level. And it also changes the way they think about their world. And so in this theory, learning actually involves a noticeable shift of consciousness.

So as we learn more about these adult learning theories, we want to keep in mind that adult learning theories are going to be focused on giving us insight into andragogy, or how adults learn. And this is a little different than the usual focus in education of students' learning needs, or pedagogy.

The unique work environment of a teacher provides constant opportunities for adults to learn together, and to be both the receiver and the facilitator of learning. Think about your professional development opportunities, your professional learning community, perhaps peer coaching opportunities, or critical friends, or any other models of adult learning that might be implemented in your school or district. In all of these situations understanding adult learning theories can help teachers not only to be more effective in their own practice, but also to be more responsive to the needs of the adult learners that they are encountering every single day.

So here's a chance for you to stop and reflect. Consider a situation in which you are acting as both the receiver and the facilitator of learning. How could understanding these adult learning theories help you to be more effective in this situation?

As you reflect on how this new information can be applied, you may want to explore the additional resources section that accompanies this video presentation. This is where you'll find links to resources chosen to help you deepen your learning and explore ways to apply your newly acquired skill set. Thanks for watching. Have a great day.