adult education

As an educator, I have to consistently attend different professional development courses to stay up to date with my practice. I have experienced many great lessons and some not so great lessons. The one that sticks out the most in my head is one that truly followed the four principals of andragogy. This PD revolved around teaching United States history. We were able to collaborate with the facilitator, coming up with ideas of what we wanted to review and how we would be evaluated on our learning. Since all of those in attendance were United States history teachers, we all had similar experiences in the classroom, already knowing what types of activities will and won't work in the classroom. The activities that we were given to try to incorporate in the class were all technology based and suitable for problem-based learning. These activities included the potential to use gamification in the classroom, which was something that most attendees were very interested in incorporating into their classrooms.

I think the main Principal of Andragogy that will influence my views of designing learning experiences in the future will be that adult learning is problem centered instead of content oriented. Though I do incorporate problem based learning already in my classroom, it is still catered to middle schoolers. My main focus is delivering content, so I would like to challenge myself with ensuring that instruction is not just truly content driven. Since it seems that adults look for learning experiences that help them cope with life changing events, problem centered learning seems that it would be the most beneficial because those adult are looking to help solve a problem that has happened to them. Incorporating problem centered learning can help cater to adult learners by allowing learners to incorporate their previous life experience into their learning.