Work
The adult educator applies the principles of adult learning to the six phases of course development: determining learner needs; writing learning objectives to fulfill those needs; creating a learning plan; selecting learning methodologies geared to the adult learner; implementing the learning plan; and evaluating the degree to which the learning objectives have been met. Central to the creation of the learning plan is the realization of how adults learn most naturally and incorporating that knowledge into every aspect of the practice of adult education.
Adult learners tend to be very practical learners. That is, they wish to see the application of their learning almost immediately. To better insure that this happens, the adult educator must understand the basics of the work, the work environment and the challenges facing the adults engaged in that work. This information is obtained during the needs assessment phase of course development.
Knowles' theories on adult education were further enhanced by the work of David A. Kolb. Kolb proposes that adult learners learn through reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, active experimentation, and concrete experience. Kolb recommends that adult educators create learning plans that incorporate the four learning styles so as to make learning more successful.
We see adult educators in many contexts. They teach adults in university settings, in government organizations and in for profit companies. When Knowles wrote about adult education in the 1950s, he was referring to the classroom environment. Today with the opportunities presented through elearning, the adult educator can reach adult learners virtually any time, anywhere.
The term is attributed to Malcolm Knowles, an American educator, who wrote The Modern Practice of Adult Education: From Pedagogy to Androgogy (1980).
Kolb identifies four basic ways adults learn through his studies of how adults take-in (prehend) knowledge and how they apply (transform) knowledge into practice.
Read more about this topic: Adult Educator
Famous quotes containing the word work:
“They should own who can administer, not they who hoard and conceal; not they who, the greater proprietors they are, are only the greater beggars, but they whose work carves out work for more, opens a path for all.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Racism is when you have laws set up, systematically put in a way to keep people from advancing, to stop the advancement of a people. Black people have never had the power to enforce racism, and so this is something that white America is going to have to work out themselves. If they decide they want to stop it, curtail it, or to do the right thing ... then it will be done, but not until then.”
—Spike Lee (b. 1956)
“Since ... six weeks ago, there has been no day in which I have not had letters and visits on the subject of my nomination for the Presidency.... I say very little. I have in no instance encouraged any one to work to that end.... I have said the whole talk about me is on the score of availability. Let availability do the work then.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)