Characteristics of Adult Learners

• Adults are autonomous and self-directed. They need to be free to direct themselves. Their teachers must actively involve adult participants in the learning process and serve as facilitators for them. Specifically, they must get participants' perspectives about what topics to cover and let them work on projects that reflect their interests. They should allow the participants to assume responsibility for presentations and group leadership. They have to be sure to act as facilitators, guiding participants to their own knowledge rather than supplying them with facts. Finally, they must show participants how the class will help them reach their goals (e.g., via a personal goals sheet).

• Adults have accumulated a foundation of life experiences and knowledge that may include work related activities, family responsibilities, and previous education. They need to connect learning to this knowledge/experience base. To help them do so, they should draw out participants' experience and knowledge which is relevant to the topic. They must relate theories and concepts to the participants and recognize the value of experience in learning.

• Adults are goal-oriented. Upon enrolling in a course, they usually know what goal they want to
attain. They, therefore, appreciate an educational program that is organized and has clearly defined elements. Instructors must show participants how this class will help them attain their goals. This classification of goals and course objectives must be done early in the course.

• Adults are relevancy-oriented. They must see a reason for learning something. Learning has to be applicable to their work or other responsibilities to be of value to them. Therefore, instructors must identify objectives for adult participants before the course begins. This means, also, that theories and concepts must be related to a setting familiar to participants. This need can be fulfilled by letting participants choose projects that reflect their own interests.

• Adults are practical, focusing on the aspects of a lesson most useful to them in their work. They may not be interested in knowledge for its own sake. Instructors must tell participants explicitly how the lesson will be useful to them on the job.

• As do all learners, adults need to be shown respect. Instructors must acknowledge the wealth of experiences that adult participants bring to the classroom. These adults should be treated as equals in experience and knowledge and allowed to voice their opinions freely in class.

http://carrie-ekey.com/handouts/Rotterdam2012/Eu_Coaches_Conf2_Rott_Day_1_A4.pdf

By keeping these characteristics in mind when teaching adult learners I think we can better help tailor instructional strategies instead of taking  generic approach.

The surprising truth about what Motivates us!

Learning Spaces

I found an interesting article that states the importance of creating a "sense of place" for students that are taking online courses in order to better support and enhance the students quality of and experience of learning.   

"Just as effective face-to-face teaching and learning, online learning and teaching benefit from purposeful curriculum design in which learning purposes, learning guidelines and appropriate resources and learning activities and interactions are structured in meaningful ways. Without such guidance, individual online learners can find themselves confused, misplaced and even frustrated in terms of their lack of place-ness. Agger-Gupta (2002, p. 144) describes these emerging issues and defines some of them as “self and identity” and “relational spaces”, which require analysis in the complex world of online learning. So, although the benefits offered by flexible, technologically-rich learning contexts often outweigh the problems associated with this type of virtual learning, the confusion and disorientation sometimes felt by students during online learning experiences is real and requires purposeful consideration by online course designers. "

I think that this discussion forum is a good example of a positive learning environment or "sense of place" designed to allow students to express themselves and add to each others learning humanizes us more. 

By having these issues in mind when creating and taking an online course will better help promote a positive learning environment for the digital student  

http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/melbourne08/procs/northcote.pdf 

Personal Learning Environments - the future of eLearning?

The following link is for an interesting article and take on the future of learning and how we can incorporate new technological advances to better help our learning and perhaps create a new type of learning system altogether (Personal Learning Environents or PLE's) .  Endless options! :)
http://www.elearningeuropa.info/files/media/media11561.pdf 

Journal 3: The power of Introverts

In Susan Cain’s video entitled “The Power of Introverts” she discusses some challenges she has faced throughout her life that have hindered her true self from being shown.  She mentions several situations and decisions she was a part of that encouraged her to put forth a more extroverted version of herself where in fact all she wanted to be was her own introverted self. 

Reflective: 

             After watching the video “The Power of Introverts” I felt really connected with Cain’s thoughts and situations she had been through as I too am a huge introvert myself!  I found myself nodding my head to practically everything she said!

Interpretive: 

Growing up in a small town and in a small family perhaps had a bit of an impact on my introverted tendencies.  From a young age I was a shy kid always clinging to my mom or dad.  But as Cain not so fondly recalls, this is considered as a social faux pas and we should all be more adventurous and outgoing.  True enough, my parents doing what they believed would be best for me put me in countless number of afterschool and weekend activates.  From ballet to gymnastics, swimming, girl guides, the list goes on.  Looking back at that today, I can truly appreciate all of the effort, time, and money my parents put into all of those extracurricular activities for me; however at the time it was nothing but that.

 As Cain mentioned all she wanted to do was read.  For me all I wanted to do was draw, paint, color, and make things with my hands.  I do think that making a child participate in something that they haven’t expressed or shown any interest in can be a challenging issue.  For example, I remember the first day of ballet I ended up crying because I didn’t know what I was doing whereas all of the other kids seemed to grasp on fairly quickly.  Swimming wasn’t that great either as I quickly realized I had a fear of water!  Cain’s message about letting somebody just be themselves really hit home.  Why not just let somebody be themselves and do what they want to do?

Decisional:     

I agree with Cain’s point about stopping the need for an abundance of group work or projects.  Sometimes it’s nice to just work by yourself and see what your own true capabilities are without having somebody to share the work or add their own opinions and thoughts. 

One of my most favorite quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson is “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”  I think that this quote really ties into Cain’s main point of her video.  I do believe it is important to be open and share your thoughts with one another.  It is important to try new things occasionally to “change things up” per say.  But it shouldn’t be necessary to go beyond one’s comfort level just to be liked or to appear more engaging. 

References:

Cain, S. (2012). The power of introverts.  Retrieved from

http://www.ted.com/talks/susan_cain_the_power_of_introverts.html

A Different Take on our Education System....

Case Study Instructional Strategy

The following link is a video describing the case study instructional strategy.  It briefly describes what a case study is, how it is best used, some limitations and advantages to this strategy.  The roles of the educator and students are also discussed along with an example on how to use the case study technique within the classroom.

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/14567759/pid-instructional-strategies-video