Adapting Instructional Activities to Adult Learners Part 1

Nora Nixon Ponder (2006, p. 1) indicates that in 1920 Eduard C. Lindemen wrote that adult education is a “co-operative venture in non-authoritarian informal learning- the chief purpose of which is to discover the meaning of experience.” (as cited in Brookfield 1987, p. 122). Malcolm Knowles (1970, p.39) is often closely associated with androgogy and “organized the concepts into a comprehensive theory … based on four assumptions that differentiated adults from child learners… self-concept, experience, readiness to learn, and orientation to learning” (as cited in Schugurensky 2002, p. 1) Galbraith (2004, p. 3) indicates that the “purpose of teaching is to facilitate personal growth and development…of learners…. The teacher of adults is in a sense a guide to learners who are involved in an educational journey

“Pedagogy describes the traditional instructional approach based on teacher-directed learning theory. Androgogy describes the approach based on self-directed learning theory.”   While pedagogy assumes a dependent personality, the learner’s experience is intended to be built upon, a uniform curriculum based on age-level, a subject centered orientation to learning, motivated by extrinsic rewards and punishment; androgogy assumes the learner is increasingly self-directed, the learner’s experience is a rich resource for learning by self and others, readiness to learn develops from life tasks and problems, learning orientation is task- or problem-oriented, and the learner is motivated is intrinsic incentives or curiosity.  (Gibbons & Wentworth 2001 p.1) 

References

Galbraith, M. W. (2004) Adult Learning Methods: A Guide for Effective Instruction.  3^rd ed. Malabar, Florida: Krieger Publishing Company.

Gibbons, H. S. & Wentworth, G. P. (2001) Andrological and pedagogical training differences for online instructors. Journal of Learning Administration, 4 (3), 1.  from http://www.nald.ca/fulltext/report3/rep28/REP28-25.HTM downloaded on 4/3/2007

Nixon-Pender, N. (2006) Leaders in the field of adult education: Eduard C. Lindeman from http://archon.educ.kent.edu/Oasis/Pubs/0800-1.htm  last updated 10/31/2006 downloaded on 4/3/2007

Schugurensky, D. (2002) 1970: Malcolm Knowles publishes The Modern Practice of Adult Education: Andragogy vs. Pedagogy.  History of Education: Selected Moments of the 20^th Century. from: http//fcis.oise.utoronto.ca/d~daniel_schugurensky/assignment1/1970knowles.html last updated 7/2/2002 downloaded on 4/3/2007