Month: November 2018

Ruiz wrote an interesting post in which he challenged Knowles’ six assumptions of Andragogy outlined in Unit 6 of our course website (Leadership 500, n.d.). He argued that each of the six assumptions about adult learners could support or inhibit their learning. I think Ruiz was successful in making the point that teaching adult learners cannot happen without looking at them from a holistic perspective. Their life circumstances and life experiences have an impact on their ability to be successful learners. Therefore if one is to successfully teach an adult learner, you have to take all of that into consideration.

Having professional conversations with people about their goals and professional development are probably no less complicated for leaders. The individual in front of you is the sum total of their beliefs, experiences, and circumstances. The questions I am wrestling with currently are how to motivate someone to change if they don’t see the need to change, and how to have difficult conversations involving critical feedback without the person becoming defensive. I would love to see more practical examples of transformative leaders in real life so I could observe their approach in this regard.

Leadership 500 (n.d.).  Unit 6 notes. In Unit 6 [Web  page]. Retrieved from https://create.twu.ca/ldrs500/unit-6/unit-6-notes/

Jessica works for the Fraser health care system. She coordinates home support for seniors who at the end of their life, or who are sick and wish to remain at home while they recover. Her job also involves staffing health care aides at various health care facilities. Jessica works on a multidisciplinary team with doctors, nurses, occupational therapists and social case managers. She is at her best when all the members of her team are working at their best and all are able to collaborate well together. An example of a time when she functioned at her best was when there was a flu outbreak at one of her facilities and she had to coordinate a plan to deal with the outbreak effectively. This involved quarantining affected individuals, contacting those who could have been exposed, and sending out written communication regarding the situation.

Three essential skills for Jessica’s role are: critical thinking, emotional intelligence and innovation. Jessica needs to be able to think on her feet and solve problems as they arise. There are many variables and things tend to change at the spur of the moment. She often has to drop one thing to address something urgent that has arisen. Emotional intelligence is important because her clients are often dealing with the end of a loved one’s life and emotions can run high. She needs to be able to respond rather than react, and to be empathetic and compassionate towards their situation. Innovation is necessary because one approach does not often work for every client. Jessica needs to think of new ways of getting tasks done according to each particular each situation. Fortunately, these skills are areas of strength for Jessica, and this contributes to why she loves her job so much. One area of weakness for her is conflict management. She has identified that she needs to learn how to better address situations where she needs to have a difficult conversation with someone without putting them on the defensive. She identified that her organization offers free courses in conflict-resolution and she is planning to take them.

Having a professional conversation with Jessica about her development would be very easy. She is a proactive person and has already thought about where she would like to be in five years. Her goal is to become a director of care for an home support site. She already has a plan in place: (1) to complete the Masters program; (2) to build partnerships and a network of people who are managers and directors to give her greater exposure; (3) gain more education through courses offered by her organization; (4) apply for interim management positions to demonstrate her management capabilities. It was a pleasure speaking with Jessica and I am sure that she will achieve her goals in the next five years.

As I reflected upon my experience teaching English to adult seminary students in Haiti, I identified three of Knowles’ assumptions about Androgogy cited in the Unit 6 notes (Leadership 500, n.d.). The three assumptions are: adults are mostly driven by motivation; an adult is more problem- than subject-centered in learning; adults move towards self-direction and away from dependence.

The learners in my class were all there because they were internally motivated out of a desire to use their English in practical ways. It was not a requirement of the seminary. I can recall only one student who seemed to want to develop her English skills for the purpose of being able to carry a conversation. Other students wanted to become travelling evangelists, teachers, and one wanted to become a pastor. Therefore they all were seeking to develop their English skills to be able to use them in the not-so-distant-future, not simply to earn a certificate of some sort.

Knowles’ (Leadership 500, n.d.) notion that the adult learner’s experience is a rich resource for learning is very valid. I wish I had realized this during my trip to Haiti. If I return again, I will capitalize upon this valuable resource by having the learners talk about their personal experiences. As an adult learner of French, I find that I am more motivated to speak in French despite the inevitable errors I know I will make, when I am talking about a topic that I am passionate about. Having the adult learners talk about their own experiences would almost reverse our roles—I would become the student and they would become the teacher.  This would help those who are less confident in their English skills to  communicate more freely as they speak about things with which they have much familiarity.

With respect to transformative learning, my teaching partner and I used drama and visual images to support our work with our students and we found it to be effective. This is in agreement with the notion that transformational learning can be fostered through critical reflection on media such as  music, poetry, art, photography, literature, dreams, drama and fiction (Leadership 500, n.d.). However, I now realize that for the experience to be truly transformative for the learners in Haiti, it should have occurred over time. Sokal and Sharma (cited in Leadership 500, n.d.) found that an ideal program would entail 30 – 100 hours of training over six to 12 months, and include coursework and professional learning communities. This presents a way that the program can be expanded in the future. But prior to that, ‘transformation’ in the context of the adult English-language learners in Haiti would have to be defined. We would have to determine what the goal of the program would be, and how exactly we would recognize when students have undergone ‘transformation’. This leads me to ask the question: how does one define what the end result of transformative learning looks like within the context that you are in?

 

Leadership 500 (n.d.).  Unit 6 notes. In Unit 6 [Web  page]. Retrieved from https://create.twu.ca/ldrs500/unit-6/unit-6-notes/