The Learning Styles - Personal Statement Example

Introduction Even though the concept of learning has only one meaning, it is not necessary that all the people have same abilities in learning a topic properly. Intellectual factors, age factors, social factors, cultural factors, learning methods, styles etc can affect the learning process immensely. The needs of one student may not be relevant to another student. The learning styles of one student need not be the same for another student. Same way, learning occurs differently in different people even if the teacher adopts same learning strategies for all the students in the class. I have an experience of working with adult learners when a CEO of a printing unit near my home requested my services for improving the communication abilities of their production workers. This unit was consisting of around 100 printing workers from different countries. Because of the diversity in workforce, this unit faced so many troubles in effective communication which affected their growth prospects immensely. Even though the workers were skilled ones, lack of understanding between them resulted in lack of coordination and subsequent production problems. The company CEO asked me to give the entire production staff week long training with respect to effective communication in a multicultural environment. The training session was arranged after the regular schedule of the works and lasted for two hours continuously for a week. This paper is written as a case study based on the experiences I received from adult learners of the week long training class I have taken for around 100 production workers from different countries. Analysis CAEL, (n. d) has mentioned that adult students have unique needs like Academic and motivational advising supportive of their life and career goals and Recognition of previously obtained experience- and work-based learning (CAEL, n. d., p. iv). Most of the workers who attended the training were keen in seeking advices from me for their career goals. Unlike the normal students, adults showed no hesitancy in clearing their doubts. But most of their doubts were related to their career goals. They were eager to know about the possibilities of building a successful career with the help of improved communication abilities. Another important factor which attracted me was their enthusiasm in incorporating their past work based knowledge to the topics which I explained in the class. For example, when I explained that information communicated through nonverbal means are more than verbal means, most of them agreed with it. Some of them even pointed out that how well they were communicating with the co-workers from different countries using the nonverbal means. One of them, who was from India, told me that it was difficult for him to understand the accent of the American fellow workers and grasped majority of the things from the body languages, facial expressions, gestures etc during his earlier tenure in the organization. “Adult learners come to learning with a wide range of previous experiences, knowledge, self-direction, interests, and competencies. This diversity must be accommodated in the professional development planning” (Adult learning theory, n. d). Compared to the normal students, I have witnessed well organized and well prepared adult learners in my class. Moreover, most of the communication theories explained in the classes were accepted by them citing their own experiences. Learning is a never ending process. It starts from the birth and ends only at the death. Adults know this fact better than anybody else and they were keen in acquiring new knowledge and skills from whatever the sources available to them. Most of the adult learners who attended my training sessions were much older than me. But still they did not shown any reluctance in accepting my arguments even though they have expressed doubts at times. I have realized the competencies of the adult learners even at the first class itself. I realized that better preparations are essential for conducting the class because of the adult’s abilities to incorporate their life experiences with the communication theories I explained in the class. Much of the learning occurred in an informal way even though the training was designed in a formal way. Many times our discussions gone beyond the limits of the topics which we earlier decided to included in the training sessions. In fact, many of the adult learners asked me different irrelevant questions also and a substantial period of time utilized to clear the doubts of the adult learners with respect to other areas of their work. I have realized that the adult learners are taking the training sessions seriously and they have clear knowledge that their knowledge is outdated and the fresh bloods may have updated knowledge. Discussion Lieb, (1991) has mentioned that adults are autonomous, self-directed, goal-oriented, relevancy-oriented and practical in nature compared to normal students (Lieb, 1991). The educational needs of the adults are entirely different from that of the normal students because of the above fact. Most of the adults always analyze the utility factor before studying something. On the other hand, normal students don’t have such preferences in their studies. For example, an adult working in production unit will never attend the training conducted by a marketing department. Some of the adults at the beginning of the class asked me about the purpose and utility of improving their communication skills. They thought that communication skills are essential for the marketing people alone and the production people have no use with the improvement in communication skills. Only after I explained that communication skills are necessary not only for the marketing people, but for the entire employees of an organization especially under the current globalized business environment, they were convinced. When I reminded them that teamwork is necessary for improving the productivity and to avoid work related stress up to certain extent, they agreed that. I also asked them that what they will do whenever they face some difficulties in finishing a job. Most of them replied that they will seek the advice of the fellow workers. I have explained that it was possible only because of the proper communication between them. One of my professors who taught me during my college days has told us that one of the major problems of student community is the psychological process of retroactive inhibition. Retroactive inhibition is the tendency of recently gained knowledge or skills to degenerate when new learning in a similar area is acquired (Retroactive inhibition, 2009). But such problems are less among the adult learners. Most of the recent learning occurred to the adult learners might be related to their life experiences and such learning may not vanish easily even if new knowledge or leaning occurs. Self directed learning is an important factor which separate adult learning from learning styles of the normal students. Adults have their own ways of learning. They know very well that which style of learning will be comfortable to them. Some of the adults use internet like online sources for acquiring more knowledge whereas some others were interested in reading books from the libraries in order to boost their knowledge. A third segment of adult learners have told me that they try to learn things from their surroundings. Self directed learning helped the adult learners to select their own learning methods for the proper understanding of the topics discussed in the class. “Adult learners tend to be less interested in, and enthralled by, survey courses. They tend to prefer single concept, single-theory courses that focus heavily on the application of the concept to relevant problems. This tendency increases with age”(Ron and Zemke, 1984). Adult learners have certain limitations in learning because of biological factors. Learning occurs in the brain and brain activities of adults are comparatively less than that of the normal students which prevent them from focusing in many things at a time. It is difficult for them to learn multiple theories about the same topic and they normally interested in learning topic with respect to a single theory. Even though I have explained many theories with respect to communication, some of the participants informed me that it is difficult for them to compare these different theories of communication. They asked me to explain a communication theory which is relevant to their production activities rather than lecturing about so many communication theories suitable for other professionals. Even though adult learners have the proper mindset for learning, because of the age factor, some of the complicated theories are little bit difficult for them to understand. Adults may have different roles in life and hence sometimes it might be difficult for them to give more attention to their studies. For example, an adult learner could be a husband/wife, a father/mother or a professional with workplace commitments. Because of these diverse roles, it is difficult for the adult learners to give full attention to their studies. Some of the adult learners have told me that they could not read the lecture notes at least once during the training period because of their commitments in the family and at the workplace. Intrinsic motivation was one of the major characteristics of the adult learns for whom I have conducted the communication classes. As a teacher, I did nothing to motivate the adult learners as I have realized even from the first class that majority of the adult learners who attended the training session were eagerly waiting for the lecture irrespective of their culture, age or profession. It is difficult to see such intrinsic motivation in a normal student class room. Normal students need some extrinsic motivations to sustain their focus in the class and the topic. Reflections of the case study undertaken Many of my doubts about adult learning have been cleared after the training session was over. Earlier, I thought it might be difficult for me to manage the adult learning classes. But after the training session, I have realized that it is easy to manage the adults compared to the normal students. Adult learners are more disciplined and no need to motivate them to start the class. Most of the adult learners who attended the class, actively involved in the class procedures which proved that compared to the normal students adult learners are better focused in their future career. It is easy to present a topic even without an example to the adult learners. Adult learners have better life experiences than the normal students and the concepts which explained in the classes were easily understandable to them because of the backing of their real life experiences. The complements and the appreciations I received from the adult learners was beyond my expectations. In fact most of the diverse adult learners benefitted from the communication improvement class and some of them told me that many of their doubts about the effective communication have been cleared after the training. Even though, I had some earlier experiences of taking classes to the normal students, I can safely say that these training classes gave me more satisfaction than the earlier ones taken to the normal students because of the number of positive feedbacks I received from adults. Conclusions Adult learners have the backing of their life experiences in their learning process and hence they learn things more easily than the normal students. The needs of the adult learners are different from that of the needs of the student community. Adult learners are more focused about the utility of the learning tasks with respect to their career prospects. They know their limitations in learning more than anybody else and they exhibit more enthusiasm in the class than the normal students. Adult learners are motivated intrinsically whereas the student learners need some external motivation to stay focused in the class activities. Disturbances made by the adult learners in the class are less than the disturbances made by the students. In other worlds, adult learners are easily manageable compared to the normal students. References 1. Adult learning theory, (n. d), Retrieved on 30 May 2010 from http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/methods/technlgy/te10lk12.htm 2. CAEL, (n. d.), PRINCIPLES IN PRACTICE: Assessing Adult Learning Focused Institutions, Retrieved on 30 May 2010 from http://www.cael.org/pdf/Case_Study.pdf 3. Lieb Stephen, (1991), Principles of adult learning, Retrieved on 30 May 2010 from http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/adults-2.htm 4. Ron and Zemke Susan (1984), 30 THINGS WE KNOW FOR SURE ABOUT ADULT LEARNING, Retrieved on 30 May 2010 from http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/adults-3.htm 5. Retroactive inhibition, (2009), Retrieved on 30 May 2010 from http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_1861701750_1861701750/nextpage.html Read More