Principles of Adult Education - Essay Example

______________ ___________ _____ Roll ______________ Principles of Adult Education There are no hard and fast rules for education standards which can give a clear picture of distinguishing features between adult and childhood education, however to great extent the similarity exists for the purpose of educating and training the learning society especially when the survey evidence conflicts in the United Kingdom, it is clear that adult participation rates whether in formal education and training or in learning more broadly conceived-do not match the rhetoric associated with the concept of the present learning society. This causes one to think seriously about implementing principles in adult education A Theoretical view of Learning as an Acquisition Process When examined in the light of ‘acquisition’ it presents with a theoretical view as to how mental information processing occurs, how cognitive structures develop and change, and how a repertoire of new behaviours is acquired and used as practical intelligence or expertise. What is acquired is not just knowledge content but strategies or capacities to develop new knowledge or cope with unfamiliar situations. The focus is on the individual, and particularly that person’s conscious, rational activities of perceiving, interpreting, categorising and storing knowledge. Basically it depends upon the capabilities of an individual as to how he perceives learning. Schemata theorists, for example, suggest that as learners we first acquire new information, interpret it according to our previous experiences, then evaluate and remember concepts using our existing mental schemata or categories, and restructure our concepts and organising schemata as we are challenged by new experiences (Rumelhart & Norman, 1978). All acquisition theories have some explanatory power when examining the range of different individuals’ engagements with learning opportunities. These theories maintain that some concepts and practices do exist as a ‘body’ or discipline of previously developed knowledge, and that a learner encounters and integrates these. They suggest links among sociological and psychological theories of human behaviour, and emphasise that learners do acquire competencies in ways that cannot be fully explained through structures such as social class, economic privilege, group affiliation and networks. (Foley, 2004) Acquisition theories also raise issues about translating and sharing knowledge via brainstorming or by any other means among applications and groups. For example, expertise studies show that experts may develop procedure-bound routines that are locked into particular contexts and that blind them to the insight of relative novices. Learning as a Reflective Process This influential adult learning perspective casts the individual as a central actor in a drama of personal ‘meaning-making’. As learners reflect on their lived experience, they actively interpret what they see and hear, emphasising aspects of greatest personal interest or familiarity, and so construct and transform their own unique knowledge in such a way that learners are able to grasp the concepts that are being taught to them. This means that in a classroom of adults listening to a presentation, each learner will most likely construct a very different understanding of what they are hearing. Some writers associated with reflective constructivism, such as Piaget (1966) focus on the individual, alternating between assimilation of newly constructed concepts and accommodation of these constructs to new encounters. Others, like Vygotsky (1978) focus on the social interaction between the individual and the environment, showing that in the process of constructing knowledge learners affect other pupil around them as much as they are affected by the pupil. (Foley, 2004) However, all reflective learning theories share one central belief: as learners’ teachers construct, through reflection, a personal understanding of relevant structures of meaning derived from their actions in the world. Learning happens only when there is reflective thought and internal ‘processing’ by the learner, in a way that actively makes sense of an experience and links it to previous learning. Schon (1983) has been a significant promoter of reflective processes to understand workplace learning. Schon’s view is that adults work amid uncertainty, complexity and value conflict, often managing problems for which few existing rules learned through formal training or past experience can apply. (Foley, 2004) In the everyday process of ‘meaning-making’ and problem solving, reflective theories explain that pupil learn procedural knowledge (how to do things or solve problems) and propositional knowledge (what things mean) through reflecting on experiences. But in critical reflection people question how they framed the problem in the first place. Even if no apparent problems exist, the thoughtful practitioner questions situations, asking why things are the way they are, why events unfold in the way they do. People also reflect critically to problematic their own actions, asking: Why did I do what I did? What beliefs inform my practice, and how are these beliefs helping or hindering my work? Brookfield and Mezirow both have theorised how such critical reflection interrupts, reconstructs and thus transforms human beliefs. Brookfield (1995) suggests that when we reflect on our experience with ‘skeptical questioning’ and ‘imaginative speculation’, we refine, deepen or correct our knowledge constructions. The key is confronting and perhaps rupturing our deepest beliefs, including those dominant ideologies that we have uncritically absorbed from our cultural communities (Foley, 2004). Learning as a Community Process One problem with explaining adult learning as a straightforward matter of individuals reflecting carefully and even critically on their experiences is that we are embedded so thoroughly in our cultures that we may not be able to distance our thinking from our own experiences. Garrick (1999), for example, suggests that what we imagine to be our ‘experience’ is created by a particular discourse. Discourses shape how we perceive what Schon has called ‘routine’ and ‘non-routine’ problems, how we interpret our own actions, and what knowledge we consider worthy of learning. A second problem with ‘mentalist’ reflective views of learning is their separation of thinking from acting. A growing shift to conceptualise learning as more relational and contextual than reflection-based is evident among situative theorists like Greeno, Lave & Wenger etc. They argue that learning is rooted in the situation in which a person participates, not in the head of that person as intellectual concepts produced by reflection. Knowing and learning are defined as engaging in changing processes of human participation in a particular community of practice. A community of practice is any group of individuals who work together for a period developing particular ways of doing things and talking about things that their members come to learn. Lave and Wenger (1991) argue that individuals learn as they participate by interacting with the community (with its history, assumptions and cultural values, rules and patterns of relationship), the tools at hand (including objects, technology, languages and images), and the moments activity (its purposes, norms and practical challenges). Thus, knowing is interminably inventive and entwined with doing. The objective is to become a full participant in the community of practice, not to learn about the practice. The community itself defines what constitutes legitimate practice. (Foley, 2004) Learning occurs as a cycle of questioning something in this activity system, analysing its causes, modelling a new explanation or solution, implementing this model in the system, reflecting on it and consolidating it. But unlike individualist reflection-on-experience models, activity theory views learning as the collective construction and resolution of successively evolving tensions or contradictions in a complex system. The learning process involves the system’s objects, mediating artifacts, and the perspectives of participants. Adult Learning – Organization and Practice Adult learning is practiced and organized in terms of two main groups: The first group of concepts, emphasizing the organizational perspective, can be seen to include terms such as distance, flexible and open learning or education. There are, in addition, many other related, synonymous, cognate or precursor concepts-such as correspondence, external and non-traditional provision which belong with this group and merit some consideration. The second group, stressing the individual learner’s perspective, includes the closely linked concepts of experiential, problem-based, independent and self-directed learning. Once again, there are a series of related terms that need to be borne in mind, including action, discovery, learner-managed and student-centred learning. (Tight, 2003) Two of the most widely discussed terms in adult education, andragogy and conscientization-ideas which have claims to be considered as the most, or perhaps only, original theories to be developed by adult educators also belong in the second, individual group of learning concepts. Distance, Open and Flexible Learning Thus, correspondence and external study may be seen as precursors of distance education, to be distinguished from it largely by the range and level of educational technologies used (Glatter et al. 1971). Some now recognize a third ‘generation’ of practice in this area, developed from distance education and characterized by the use of computer-based instruction (Mason and Kaye 1989), to which, more recently, the term-distributed learning has been applied. As a concept, distance education has itself now been partly superseded by the term open learning. Keegan, on the other hand, starts his analysis from an explicit recognition of the range of different concepts and practices that have been drawn together under the banner of distance education: “Distance education” is a generic term that includes the range of teaching/learning strategies referred to as ‘correspondence education’ or ‘correspondence study’ at further education level in the United Kingdom; as ‘home study’ at further education level and ‘independent study’ at higher educational level in the United States; as ‘external studies’ in Australia; and as ‘distance teaching’ or ‘teaching at a distance’ by the Open University of the United Kingdom”. (Keegan, 1986) Andragogy While Knowles’ interpretation and application of the concept have varied somewhat over the years, a series of assumptions about individual adult learning have remained at the core as a person matures: His self-concept moves from one of being a dependent personality toward one of being a self-directed human being; He accumulates a growing reservoir of experience that becomes an increasing resource for learning; His readiness to learn becomes oriented increasingly to the developmental tasks of his social roles; and His time perspective changes from one of postponed application of knowledge to immediacy of application, and accordingly his orientation toward learning shifts from one of subject-centeredness to one of problem-centeredness. (Knowles 1970) The links to more recent notions about experiential and self-directed learning, discussed in the previous section, are clear. Knowles then went on to identify ‘conditions of learning’ for adults, together with associated ‘principles of teaching’, thereby providing explicit guidance as to how the theory should be applied in practice. While Knowles’ arguments for andragogy have met with considerable enthusiasm and support on both sides of the Atlantic (e.g. Allman 1983, Mezirow 1981), they have also, of course, been the subjects of much criticism (e.g. Brookfield 1986, Tennant 1997). These critiques have tackled the underlying assumptions of andragogy one by one. Thus, the widespread existence of self-direction amongst adults, and its implied absence in children, has been queried. Similarly, the problem-centered focus of adult, as opposed to child, learning has been questioned. The third assumption has been seen as ignoring the reflective, personal and serendipitous aspects of adult learning, while suggesting a reductionist and behaviouristic, competency-based approach to practice. Of the four assumptions, it is the second that has been least criticized: ‘it is this second assumption of andragogy that can arguably lay claim to be viewed as being a ‘given’ in the literature of adult learning’ (Brookfield 1986). Yet, even in this case, the significance of the assumption for adult education and training practice has been doubted: ‘experience may well be a characteristic that sets children apart from adults, but it is not a characteristic which is relevant in distinguishing between good educational practice for adults and good educational practice for children’ (Tennant 1988). Teaching Children A learning style is the way in which a learner begins to concentrate, make sense of and store new and difficult information. Whether seen biologically or psychologically, it refers to the developmental myriad of personal characteristics that make the same teaching method effective for some students and ineffective for others. Learning style differs from person to person, as individual and unique as a signature. (Tight, 2003) Learning styles are influenced by our genetic make up, our environment, upbringing and culture. During our early years, the architecture of our brain is established and, not surprisingly, preferred learning styles are determined. Learning styles are the outcome of: The formal training and education of early adulthood The workplace and family contribution towards mind development, and The recreational activities and informal learning opportunities of later adulthood A person’s learning style is the one they learned to use for survival as an infant, so their brain gives it first priority for the rest of their lives. Learning is all about the acquisition of new knowledge and skills and application of the obtained knowledge and skills along with providing opportunities for pupils to develop their abilities to innovate. Depending upon the needs and practices of the learner, based upon the theories and literature let us examine the situation in which learning is different in children. In Britain, as elsewhere, school programmes often have understanding as a goal. For example, children have been expected to: Understand and respond to the texts they read and, develop their understanding of Standard English in English lessons, and develop explicit understanding of how language and text work, (and, in Wales, understand and respond to a variety of materials in Welsh); Develop their understanding of place value, relationships between numbers, operations, patterns and properties of shape, properties of position and movement, measures, and probability in mathematics lessons; Develop an understanding of aspects of life processes, materials and physical processes in science lessons; in Scotland, the guidelines for environmental studies mention ‘understanding living things and the processes of life’, while in Northern Ireland, the requirements for science and technology require pupils to ‘understand that humans have skeletons and muscles to support their bodies and help them move’; Develop an understanding of mechanisms, and the form and function of products in design and technology lessons; Understand how information technology (IT) devices can be used in information technology lessons; Understand aspects of the past and chronology in history lessons; Develop an understanding of a range of places and themes in geography lessons; Develop understanding of the work of artists in art lessons; Develop understanding of music from different times and places in music lessons; Understand small-sided games in physical education lessons; Understand different kinds of behaviour using moral categories. (Tight, 2003) So we can conclude that if we assume that children learn differently from adults, the main reason highlighting the cause would be ‘understanding’ and ‘free learning’. Understanding is also bound by a child’s development. If a child is unable to relate more than two items of information, this limits the complexity of the understanding that can be achieved. By about one year old, a child can process one item; by two years old, this has increased to two; by five years old, it has increased to three; by eleven years old it may have increased to four, the average level for adults (Tight, 2003). Processing speed also increases with age. This does not necessarily mean that there is a growth in capacity. It could be that what is there is being used more efficiently. One case is of the view where the total processing space is constant and equal to the sum of the space needed for processing and the short-term storage space. With age, less processing space is needed to do a given task so more is available for temporary storage. However if the answer to the question that “Do children learn differently from adults” is ‘No’, the reason behind this would be based upon the theoretical aspects, Piaget and other well known theorists have given. Various behaviour analysts have, over the years, researched how we perceive, process and store information, our personalities, cerebral geography, intelligence, social interaction, environment and sensory modalities irrespective of the age group. This research is still going on and will continue. As an analyst once said: “If the human brain was simple enough for us to understand, we’d be so simple we couldn’t”. One single significant factor arises; the brain is meaning driven, not data driven. The way in which we understand new concepts is to process them during downtime, when we’re sleeping or relaxing. The brain is like a non stop search engine trying to make sense of this new data, comparing it to what we already know and our past experiences and making new internal pathways or synapses. Work Cited Brookfield, S 1986, “Understanding and Facilitating Adult Learning”. San Francisco, CA, Jossey Bass Foley Griff, 2004. “Dimensions of Adult Learning: Adult Education and Training in a Global Era”: Allen & Unwin. Place of Publication: Crows Nest, N.S.W Glatter, R, Wedell, E, Harris, W and Subramanian, S 1971. “Study by Correspondence: an enquiry into correspondence study for examinations for degrees and other advanced qualifications”. London, Longman. Keegan, D, 1986 The Foundations of Distance Education. Beckenham, Croom Helm. Knowles, M, 1970. The Modern Practice of Adult Education: from pedagogy to andragogy. Cambridge Book Company. Mason, R and Kaye, 1989. A (eds) “Mindweave: Communications, Computers and Distance” Education. Oxford, Pergamon Press. Rumelhart, D. W. & Norman, D. A. 1978 “Accretion, tuning and restructuring: Three models of Learning” in J. W. Cotton & R. L. Klatsky (eds) Semantic Factors in Cognition Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum Tennant, M 1988, Psychology and Adult Learning. London, Routledge, second edition. Tight Malcolm, 2003. “Key Concepts in Adult Education and Training”. Publisher: RoutledgeFalmer. Place of Publication: New York. Read More