Step 3: Adult-Centered Implementation
Adult-Centered Teaching-Learning Process
Various reviews of adult learning theory (Imel, 1988; Zemke & Zemke, 1984) provide a summary of what researchers have learned in the past about how adults learn:
- Adults can learn throughout their lives and benefit from having a broad experience that helps them perceive, process, and use information and provide a foundation for gaining additional knowledge.
- Adults need to be able to integrate new ideas with what they already know. Information that has little “conceptual overlap” with what is already known may be acquired slowly.
- Adults learn what they consider to be important. They work harder and perform better when educational experience provide what they value, but what they value depends upon their individual goals.
- Adults want to see the relevance of learning to their lives and their careers. They prefer single concept courses that apply basic concepts to real-life situations and relevant problems.
- Adults are often time-conscious learners. Most want to meet their educational goals as directly, quickly, and efficiently as possible.
- Adults usually – but not always – need to be given autonomy and independence in the learning process. Compared with children, adults have developed an independent view of self, so they generally want to be treated as if they were responsible individuals with the capacity to set their own course. When possible (and this may not apply to individual learners who are lacking very basic academic and study skills), instruction should be designed in a way that allows adults to retain as much autonomy as possible. Some adults may need additional assistance in making the transition from a teacher-centered learning to self-directed learning activities.
These lessons are very important for the process of carrying out the instruction, what this report refers to as the Teaching-Learning process. Drawing on those lessons, Key Components include:
- Make it relevant
- Integrate content
- Engage the learner as an adult
- Draw on the learner’s experience
- Vary training techniques to appeal to different learning styles
- Innovation: Use of "Blended Learning"
- Create a positive learning environment
- Be sensitive to cultural differences
- Give Frequent and Immediate Feedback
- Resources for Adult-Centered Teaching-Learning Process
Throughout this section, the report offers practical tips to carry out these key components. The tips are from a useful trainer’s guide published by the National Highway Institute called, Circle of Learning.