Twelve Principles for Adult Education
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I have been reading Learning to Listen Learning to Teach for my class. I have to say that while the book is at times almost too sweet in it’s optimistic tone it provides quite a few insights that will help inform my teaching and curriculum development practices in the futures.
The book details twelve principles that guide effective adult education, I wanted to share these with you as well.
Learning Needs and Resource Assessment
Learning needs and resources assessment is a continuous process: we discover learners’ needs, we meet them, and in doing so through engaging tasks we discover further needs. (p. 228)
Safety
When adult learners feel safe, they bring more energy to their learning tasks; they take greater risks; they evoke a wider world for themselves. (p. 230)
Sound Relationships
A relationship of mutual respect is the beginning. The teacher must be an accessible resource. (p. 230)
Sequence Reinforcement
The design of learning tasks must reflect an appropriate sequence for the group and offer adequate reinforcement. Tasks must move from simple and safe to complex and repeated until they know they know. (p. 231)
Praxis: Action with Reflection
Praxis = Action with reflection, is more than practice. The learner does what she is learning and immediately reflects upon that doing. (p. 232)
Respect for Learners as Subjects
The educator needs to honor the learner first as an adult with years of experience and informal as well as formal learning. Inviting people to tell their stories, share their hopes and fears, and simply express their expectations of an educational event is a way to show this respect for them as subjects of their own lives, as well as of their own learning. (p. 233)
Ideas, Feelings, and Actions
How is my teaching involving the learning in thinking, feeling, and doing? Where is the cognitive material in my content? Where is the affective? Where are the psychomotor aspects of the learning tasks I set? (p. 234)
Immediacy
Unless adults see that their efforts are having practical and immediate results, they rarely continue a retraining program. (p. 236)
New Roles for Dialogue
Some adult learners may resist dialogue in favor of a passive learning model. The traditional model needs to be challenged so that students can speak of themselves as future resources. (pp. 236-237)
Teamwork
We live and learn together. We can invite them to work together on learning tasks and watch the peer education, group bonding, and learning that occur. (p. 238)
Accountability
How do they know they know? “We are not leaving this item until I’m convinced that you all know that you know it.” (p. 239)
Honest Dialogue
In a dialogue approach to adult learning the teacher learns and the learner teaches. (p. 239)