{"id":196,"date":"2018-06-09T00:38:30","date_gmt":"2018-06-09T00:38:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/layla11\/?p=196"},"modified":"2018-06-14T15:16:43","modified_gmt":"2018-06-14T15:16:43","slug":"unit-6-learning-activity-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/layla11\/2018\/06\/09\/unit-6-learning-activity-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Unit 6, Learning Activity 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

My experience working with adult learners<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fortunately, my professional work has a lot to do with adult learners as I am one of the trainers in my organization to train new recruits who are at least older than 22. Adult learners are defined in two ways: in one sense, adults refer to “mentally mature people”; in a different sense, adults can be understood as “individuals who are beyond the traditional school ages of 7 to 21” (Lieb & Goodlad, 2005, p. 7). Clearly, the new employees can be treated as adult learners. Before I got access to the term “Andragogy”, I had never systematically considered about the difference between adult learners and children or teenagers. However, I did find out that the employees trained in my course represented several traits which were completely different with my memory of being a student during the period of high school or college. I had summarized these traits that the employees (adult learners) were very aware of what was imported to them; they also valued their experience and thoughts very much and loved to share the experience with other people; when they were not interested in the content or knowledge points I was illustrating, they just left the room to run their personal errands; and it was hard for them to accept something beyond their recognition and beliefs. These special features sometimes greatly facilitated the quality of training and the trainees showed high degree of original learning, such as the principles or knowledge just accorded with their values and experience. While, sometimes the traits were the obstacles against adult learners’ participation in learning. My previous summarization did help me to reinforce my understanding the six principles of\u00a0andragogy (Knowles, Holton, &\u00a0Swanson, 1972).<\/p>\n

1. “Self-concept: <\/strong>As a person matures, his or her self-concept moves from that of a dependent personality\u00a0toward one of a self-directing human being” (Knowles, Holton, &\u00a0Swanson, 1972, p. 4).<\/p>\n

Self-concept includes self-schema, which is our “beliefs about self that organize and guide the processing of self-relevant information”, and possible selves which are “images of what we dream of or dread becoming in the future” (Myers & Smith, 2012, p. 39). Basically, self-concept is our sense of self that based on our personal experience and keeping moving towards our ideal self. Since each individual has his or her own possible selves, their destinations and directions are completely distinctive. I can always distinguish the trainees’ directions because they would focus more on the knowledge which can help them build on the way towards their possible selves and act indifferent to the skills which is irrelevant to the directions. Also, they are more firm on their way to achieve the ideal selves than the teenagers who are mostly confused and unsure about the future.<\/p>\n

2. “Experience: <\/strong>As a person matures, he or she accumulates a growing reservoir of experience that becomes an increasing resource for learning” (Knowles, Holton, &\u00a0Swanson, 1972, p. 4).<\/p>\n

Experience is related to self-concept because the self-schemas of self-concept can “help us organize and retrieve our experiences” (Myers & Smith, 2012, p. 39). Experience is also the most typical principle that makes adult learning distinctive from learning in childhood (Mezirow, 1993). Generally, the older you are, the more experience you will gain in terms of many aspects of life and professional work. Based on my experience with adult learners, the Experience can be both an accelerator and a barrier for them. We do not just train new staff, we also regularly give class to older workers to see if they still retain the skills and knowledge. Apparently, the older staff have possessed several years working experience. It is extremely easy to re-teach them, and they are always willing to share their experience with the new staff. But when we are trying to show them a new way or method which can help them work effectively, the acceptance degree of the older staff is much lower than the new employees as the older staff are habitual of resorting to the old ways to solve problems. They would rely on their own experience, which they value a lot and has become part of their beliefs (Mezirow, 1993), and it is hard to transform them to another perspective.<\/p>\n

3. “Readiness to learn:<\/strong>\u00a0As a person matures his\/her readiness to learn becomes oriented increasingly to the developmental tasks of his social roles” (Knowles, Holton, &\u00a0Swanson, 1972, p. 4).<\/p>\n

“Adults are practical, focusing on the aspects of a lesson most useful to them in their work” (Lieb & Goodlad, 2005, p. 2). I think the developmental tasks of one’s social roles can be seen as the tasks they would like to accomplish to become their possible selves. Focusing on the practical aspects can help the adult learners move towards the goal accurately and steadily.<\/p>\n

4. “Orientation to learning:<\/strong> There is a change in time perspective as people mature \u2013 from future application of knowledge to immediacy of application. Thus, an adult is more problem than subject centered in learning” (Knowles, Holton, &\u00a0Swanson, 1972, p. 4).<\/p>\n

Adults are “goal-oriented” and “relevancy-oriented” (Lieb & Goodlad, 2005, p. 2). I think the goal means solving real life or work problems as soon as possible. Based on my experience, I think the reason why adult learners are reluctant to accept irrelevant knowledge they might use in the future is that adults have so much to deal with both in life and work and they do not have enough capacity to memorize a vast amount of knowledge. They just want to gain the relevant skills that can fix the problem they are facing as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

5. “Motivation to learn:<\/strong> As a person matures the motivation to learn is internal” (Knowles, Holton, &\u00a0Swanson, 1972, p. 4).<\/p>\n

The motivation factors for adult learners are listed by Lieb and Goodlad (2005) that “typical motivations include a requirement for competence or licensing, an expected promotion, a need to maintain old skills or learn new ones, a need to adapt to job changes, and the need to learn in order to comply with company directives” (p. 3). Clearly, the needs and requirements mentioned above are internal factors which represent the adults’ own willingness. The trainees I have met are more motivated by the need to adapt to job changes and to comply with company directives, and they want to be competent in the work and become someone reliable and trustworthy.<\/p>\n

6. “The need to know:<\/strong>\u00a0Adults need to know why they need to learn something before undertaking to learn it” (Knowles, Holton, &\u00a0Swanson, 1972, p. 4).<\/p>\n

As an adult learner, I clearly realized that teacher or trainer is a typical type of servant leadership before I took the course. And I hope what I am learning right now and what I will learn from the future courses will greatly help me create value for the organization and the community. I would also want to help other people understand the power of embodying servant leadership in educational and training profession.<\/p>\n

References<\/p>\n

Knowles, M. S., Holton, E., & Swanson, R. (1972). Andragogy<\/i>. NETCHE.<\/p>\n

Lieb, S., & Goodlad, J. (2005). Principles of adult learning. Retrieve from http:\/\/carrie-e.startlogic.com\/handouts\/Rotterdam2012\/Eu_Coaches_Conf2_Rott_Day_1_A4.pdf<\/p>\n

Mezirow, J. (1993). A transformation theory of adult learning. In Adult Education Research Annual Conference Proceedings<\/i>. pp. 141-146.<\/p>\n

Myers, D. G., & Smith, S. M. (2012). Exploring social psychology<\/i>. New York: McGraw-Hill.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/ldrs500\/unit-6\/unit-6-learning-activities\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My experience working with adult learners Fortunately, my professional work has a lot to do with adult learners as I am one of the trainers in my organization to train new recruits who are at least older than 22. Adult learners are defined in two ways: in one sense, adults refer to “mentally mature people”; … <\/p>\n

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