I have been looking into just the sector of Adult Learning for some more Literature.... WHERE TO START?! There are just endless amounts of it! I came across 3 websites all of which have their own reasons as to why/how adults learn....I have copied in the articles as well as attaching the sites they are from....
Opinions are definitely accountable for most of the literature in this post that I have attached and I would be interested to host a survey on how many adults believe in it.
One thing that certainly springs out of the literature is Adult experience... They have their own mind. I think the below 5 statements about adult learning are so relevant to my inquiry because if I don't know the reasons behind why adults learn a certain way I can't inquire about the best way to teach them.
1. Adults have a wealth of experience to draw on, and like to do so. There needs to be opportunities for adults to connect learning to their own unique personal or work situations, and opportunities for them to personalise the learning in this regard.
2. Adults aren’t used to taking direction in education like children are. Children learn because they are told to learn things that will have some relevance in the distant future and will do so without questioning why. Whereas adults need to be explicitly told what they are doing and why so they can connect the desired learning outcomes to their own goals and progress.
3. Adults need specific opportunities to self-reflect and internalize their learning. Children are more social in classroom settings than adults and talk to each other about their experience. Adults need to be offered these opportunities to reflect on new learning or else they won’t internalize and retain as much information.
4. Adults have preconceived notions about education, learning styles and subject matter. They prefer to learn a certain way, even if it is not the most conducive to their individual needs. Unlike adults, children will try most new tasks and see them through, regardless of how well they do. To overcome this adult learning barrier, we need to appeal to many different learning styles and present information in a variety of ways.
5. Adults are (often) afraid to fail. Children don’t have the same social filters and are more willing to experiment. Adult learning needs to be scaffolded (built on in small pieces and supported with extra learning) or they risk losing their intrinsic motivation and focus.
http://learnkit.com/2016/01/13/adult-learning-needs/
- Adults are self-directed learners, whereas younger students are adult-dependent learners. The traditional learning model naturally requires that children depend upon adults for the next lesson, the next assignment, and the next subject matter. Adult learning turns this paradigm on its head, by making the study of most subjects a self-directed endeavor. For the adult learner, less structure and oversight is required by the educator.
- Adults challenge new information, but younger students implicitly accept it. We’d have a problem on our hands if our nine-year old students questioned the legitimacy of their multiplication tables, or were skeptical about the spherical shape of the earth. For adult students, however, skepticism is part of the path to learning. It’s not just expected; it’s encouraged. The way that adults learn best is by challenging new ideas, comparing them to preconceived notions, life lessons, and other information, thereby cementing the new information into their minds.
- Adults pursue education with immediate application and relevance, whereas younger students simply engage in education without a clear sense of direction. It’s obvious that a fifth-grader hasn’t pegged his career path, thereby applying his geography lesson to his future job as an airline pilot. By contrast, most adults are already well into their career path. Thus, their education has immediate application to their daily life. Being able to walk from the classroom into the office makes one’s education truly applicable. For this reason, adults enter degree programs and areas of education that will immediately enhance their career, meet their needs, or solve their current problems. For the adult, education is relevant.
- Adults accept responsibility for their own learning, whereas younger students attribute educational responsibility to a parent or guardian. How adults learn is how adults live—according to their responsibility. After a childhood or teen years of dependency, the adult must now make his or her own decisions, even in education. Thus, the adult student will accept the responsibility—pass or fail—for his or her education and learning
The Table above is a Tool that compares an adult learner and a child learner.... This is a chart I am going to create in my next blog to show the differences between my classes of adults and children through performing arts, comparison tools are the best for visualising what areas need researching.
http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2013/05/awesome-chart-on-pedagogy-vs-andragogy.html
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