Columbia Southern University - What Makes Our Students Different?
As we open our first discussion for “Coffee With Crispin – and Student Success Stories with Chantell,” I thought I would share a few of my viewpoints developed over the years about how adult students learn differently than younger, traditional students. This area is rich in research, which, hopefully, can help to continue to validate and guide us toward improving our interaction and student engagement. Please share your thoughts with your colleagues on how you continue to improve our students’ learning experiences as they matriculate towards a CSU certificate or degree.
According to Knowles, adults learn differently than their younger traditional counterparts. Traditional teaching pedagogy states that the teacher, not the student is the central figure in the classroom. As the central figure, the teacher determines what is to be learned and when. (Knowles, 1968)
In fact, in 1968, Malcolm Knowles used the term andragogy, as a means to distinguish the way in which adults learn. This began a new learning model separate from the ubiquitous term, pedagogy. Simply put, Knowles defined pedagogy as the art and science of teaching children. Conversely, Knowles defined andragogy as the art and science of helping adults learn. (Knowles, 1984).
Knowles went on to convey four basic assumptions about adult learners:
1. Their self-concept moves from dependency to independency or self-directedness.
2. They accumulate a reservoir of experiences that can be used as a basis on which to build learning.
3. Their readiness to learn becomes increasingly associated with the developmental tasks of social roles.
4. Their time and curricular perspectives change from postponed to immediacy of application and from subject-centeredness to performance-centeredness (Knowles, 1980, pp. 44-45).
Adult learners need to be engaged in the classroom. Essentially, Revere and Kovach, posit that it is not a matter of if the student should be engaged in an online learning environment but to what extent should the student be engaged. They agree that what is not needed is to recreate the traditional, on ground classroom environment. Rather, they emphasize the responsibility of the faculty member to recreate a student centered learning environment. These notions clearly coincide with Knowles’ andragogy definition. (Revere & Kovach, 2011) (Knowles, 1984)
The authors agree that adults are self-directed, and that they will continue to learn as long as it seems practical to their aims and goals. As long as online adult learning classes contain these baseline requirements, students will find their experience an engaging one. Moreover, they are also more likely to persist towards graduation. (Revere & Kovach, 2011)
Some of the challenges of working with adult learners are because of their experience and their self-directedness, they are constantly seeking ways in which the learning content connects with their own experience and life requirements. (Smith 1997, 2004) This may often cause them to question the learning content and its relevance to their lives and to their degree seeking goal progress. Accommodation must be made to facilitate this energy and questioning this drive adult students show towards constructing useful knowledge on their way to mastering the class course outcomes.
Adult learning methodology was not followed during my traditional undergraduate experience. In fact, my traditional undergraduate experience was so poor that I almost did not graduate. After pondering and reflecting all that summer, I finally decided to return and finish my degree.
It was not until ten years later when I enrolled in an adult MBA program that my whole view of post secondary education changed. On the first night of class, I challenged the instructor, who had also been one of the founders of the university's adult MBA program, that I had experienced professors who treated knowledge as if it were a scarce resource like gold or oil, selectively withholding and dispensing it as they saw fit. As a working adult, such behavior did not coincide with what I experienced daily in the professional world. I further went on to say that if this was the way this program was designed, then we were going to have a hard time.
Everyone in the class turned and looked down the table at me while I looked back down the table at the instructor. He carefully eyed me over his reading glasses and then a smile slowly lit up his face. “You and those like you are the reason why we started this program in the first place,” he smiled. True to his word, my graduate learning experience was an engaging and fulfilling one.
The adult learner characteristics addressed in the above articles were those espoused by Knowles, Lindeman, and Revere and Kovach. They specifically characterized adult learners as having characteristics different from their younger, traditional counterparts. (Smith, 1997, 2004) Younger, traditional learners depend upon the teacher to be the central focus of their learning experience in that the teacher is solely responsible for determining what shall be introduced into the classroom learning experience. This teacher centered pedagogical approach is the antithesis of what goes on in an adult, student centered classroom.
These characteristics are implemented through discussion, facilitation, small group activities, and a short lecture period. This enables the experience of the adult learner to play a significant role in the learning and sharing process of the classroom.
References
Knowles, M. S. (1968). Androgogy, not pedagogy! Adult Leadership,16(10), 350-352, 386.
Knowles, M. S. (1980). The modern practice of adult education. Chicago, IL: Association Press.
Knowles, M. (1984). The adult learner: A neglected species. Houston, TX: Gulf Publishing.
Revere, L. & Korach, J. V. (2011). Online technologies for engaged learning: A meaningful synthesis for educators. The Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 12(2), 113-124.
Smith, M. K. (2012). Eduard Lindeman and the meaning of adult education.The Encyclopaedia of Informal Education. Retrieved from http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-lind.htm
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