From the course: Effectively Teaching Employees: The Basics of Adult Learning

An overview of adult learning theory

From the course: Effectively Teaching Employees: The Basics of Adult Learning

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An overview of adult learning theory

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- When I was growing up, I remember wanting to be a lot of different things. I started off wanting to be a firefighter, then a marine biologist, and for a while I wanted to be a physics teacher, an astronaut, and an Olympic athlete. The sense of who I was and what I wanted out of life were constantly changing. That isn't so true today. I have been in learning and development for over a decade now, and I firmly see myself as a learning and development professional. Your perception of yourself has changed throughout your life as well. Believe it or not, changes like this dramatically affect how people learn, and thus how you need to teach people, which is why in this lesson, I'm going to walk you through an overview of adult learning theory so that you are ready to apply it in your teaching design. The phrase adult learning theory doesn't actually refer to one specific theory, but rather a collection of theories about how people learn when they're older. The most commonly referenced theory is something called andragogy. I know, kind of a weird word. It's Greek, and it just means leading adults, as opposed to pedagogy, which means leading children. Andragogy uses six main concepts to distinguish between teaching adults and teaching children. Need for knowledge, motivation, willingness, experience, self-direction, and orientation to learn. Another theory, transformational learning, describes a three-step process where you should first identify a dilemma or crisis, second, establish personal relevance of the teaching, before finally allowing time for critical thinking so learners can reflect on what you have taught them. Experiential learning uses a four part cycle to create a teaching experience. You start by creating a concrete experience, something physical and emotional. Next, you give them a period of reflective observation about the experience they just had. Third, based on the first two steps, the learners should be encouraged to generalize what they have learned through abstract conceptualization. Finally, you should give them time to take those concepts and actively experiment with them, which starts the process all over again. This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to adult learning theory, but the important takeaway is what all of these theories have in common. They are all based on the idea that as you get older, you change in very important ways. You have a stronger sense of self or ego. You gain a lot of knowledge and experience that you bring into any new situation, and you have certain ways you like to do things and preconceived notions about a lot of what you see. You have to create experiences that are going to break through the barriers that many adults build up over their lives. Sound like a challenge you're up to? I hope so.

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