adult learning principles

ADULT

LEARNING

PRINCIPLES

CommLab India: The Global Learning Partner You Can Depend On!

Agenda

What is learning? How does learning occur? How children learn? How adults learn? The six adult learning principles


What is learning?

If your parents repeatedly tell you "kick the ball" and react positively when you swing your foot against that round

object on the floor, you have just learned what the words kick and ball mean.

So, learning can be defined as a relatively lasting change in behavior that is the result of experience.


Learning is a complex process that involves multiple factors.


Psychologists today not only study how learning occurs but also how social, emotional, cultural, and

biological variables might influence the learning process.


Now, we can infer two things from the definition: Learning is relatively permanent There is always a stimulus that kick starts learning


How does learning occur?We learn from the things that happen to us - our experiences.

For example, we learned that lightning is followed by thunder, we learned not to lie because it can cause us to lose our credibility and to lose our friends, we learned how to dance by watching others demonstrate dance steps to us.


How do children learn?


Children learn because they are told and expected to learn. They anticipate their

learning will help them in the future.CommLab India: The Global Learning Partner You Can Depend On!

They are prone to learning information by rote or memory. They will not try to comprehend the idea behind 1+1=2


They are dependent on their teacher to lead the learning. If their activities are not teacher-directed,

chaos and confusion are the result.


How do adults learn?


Adults are motivated by internal

factors such as the curiosity to learn.

They possess a sense of purpose and a

desire to learn new skills.


They have a well developed, sensible self-belief system, allowing them to reject

information that contradicts their beliefs.


They gain knowledge from practical everyday experiences.


Malcolm Knowles, an American

practitioner of adult education,

popularized the concept of adult

learning as a theory and model in the

1970s.


If we know why we are learning and if the reason fits our needs as we perceive them, we will learn quickly

and deeply. — Malcolm Knowles on Adult Learning


Malcolm Knowles proposed

a theory specifically for

adult learning which came

to be known as Knowles’

Theory of Andragogy


SIX Adult Learning Principles


1. The need to know

Adults need to know why they’re learning something.

They assess the benefits they will gain and what they risk by not learning something.


2. Changes in self-concept

Adults enjoy self-direction in their lives i.e., they accept responsibility for their own decisions.

They feel responsible for the decisions pertaining to learning and the evaluation of their instruction (why and how to learn).


3. The role of experience

Most adults draw upon the experiences they’ve assimilated throughout their lifetime to aid their learning.

In other words, their experiences act as a foundation for their learning.


4. Readiness to learn

As an individual matures through adolescence, they become ready to learn only those things they "need" to.


5. Orientation to learn

Adults tend to have a problem-centered orientation to learning and focus on tasks and problems.

Adults take up learning largely because they are experiencing some inadequacies in coping with current life problems.


6. Motivation to learn

Motivation in adults is more likely to be intrinsic such as confidence, self-satisfaction, enjoyment, or having a choice over what is learned.


adult learning principles

Education