My experiences as an adult learner

The Master of Arts in Leadership program (MA Leads) provides the perfect example of sharing my experiences as an adult learner. To better communicate these experiences, it is important that I provide a brief description of my leadership context.

I lead a conglomerate with profit-making as well as non-profit interests; an undertaking with huge leadership demands. A recurring situation which I encountered was having to take a tough position on issues and at the same time show genuine care and concern about the wellbeing of those who could be affected by such positions. This was just one of the numerous challenges I experienced as a leader.

In the absence of the challenges, I probably would not have had any justification for altering my already extremely busy schedule in favor of adding the MA Leads program which has so far been mentally-tasking, time-consuming and sometimes, emotionally-draining. Put in other words, as an adult, I would certainly not commit to any form of learning if I could not establish the need for it. On a lighter mood, I sometimes feel like a person who willfully signed up for light fitness training at the gym, but upon entry, got enlisted for a mandatory military service.

My leadership challenges put aside, I felt a strong motivation to commit to learning about leadership as it dawned on me that perhaps if I learned more about it, I could actually become a more effective leader. Hence, my motivation also came from within me; external motivators such as the prospects of a career upliftment or acquiring an academic title which I later became aware of, played insignificant roles in my decision to undergo further training on leadership. A different source of motivation was the promise that the MA Leads program could enhance my personal and professional development as a leader and that I could put what I learn into immediate practice by applying it towards solving immediate challenges I faced in my leadership context. Thankfully, this has so far been my experience with this program.

Indeed, my past and on-going experiences as a leader have deeply enriched the learning process for me. Without these experiences, I would probably have opted out of the program because I would have found it more difficult to relate with the courses I have enrolled for under this program.

In comparing my experiences in this program with those I had when I was younger, I find that now I am more inclined to want to apply my independent reasoning and self-discovery to decide on what I accept as true, false or debatable. In the past, I was more likely to accept statements from my lecturers as absolutely true because I saw them as being ahead of me in terms of knowledge and experiences.

Bringing it all together, my experiences as an adult learner fit with the six assumptions about andragogy as contained in the Unit 6 Notes which are:

(a) adults are more likely to commit to a learning program if they are convinced that such programs are relevant to their personal or professional context.

(b) the motivation for adult learning must come from within the adult.

(c) adult learning programs should actually solve real-world problems they face.

(d) an adult learning program should enrich their personal and professional development.

(e) adults prefer to apply their own self-reasoning and discovery as against being told what to do always and lastly,

(f) past experiences play a key role in enriching the learning process for an adult.