“Adults are problem –centered, not subject-centered, and desire immediate, not postponed application of the knowledge” (p 53)
Objective: What caught my attention?
At first I did not agree with this, it was almost an immediate reaction to the quote. I’ve been reading it all over the place, everything to do with Andragogy always lists Knowles assumptions about adult learners. I began to think about this more and more, and still wonder if it’s true. What about the general interest course? I think that there are exceptions to these characteristics of adult learners, they are not scientific laws. I find it hard to believe that all adult learners are seeking knowledge to solve some immediate problem.
Reflective: What did I realize about teaching as a result of this quote?
If adults are problem centered, then the teaching needs to be immediately relevant and applicable to the problem at hand. I have already taken the 3210 course; I can see now why the instructor let everyone choose their own topics to develop into a course. Practically everyone picked something that they had an interest in. Some students were actually taking a course as a work requirement, and needed to develop a course for their place of employment. It’s a clear example of this principle, the adults had a real problem, and were very engaged when developing their DACUM charts because it was relevant and solved this problem. I personally would have been very un-interested in developing some randomly assigned course that were of no interest to me, or presented no solution to any problem I had. I have realized that as an adult teacher it will be very important to instruct in a way that provides solutions the problems at hand. What I am not entirely clear on is how we will apply that to a set curriculum?
Interpretive: The Aha moment and key insight
As with the first quote, there was no Aha moment; I had to ponder this quote to get an understanding of where I wanted to go with it. This quote is encouraging to me because I am a very problem solving type of person. I will relate to the student in their quest to get an answer right and will enjoy applying the lessons to the applicable problems. A key insight for me is that as educators we will have to be very cognitive of the fact that adults learn by applying what we teach to real world problems. We will have to be very clear what the lesson plans are and how to relate the topic to a real world scenario, or class room exercise to facilitate learning.
Decisional: How has this quote influenced my notion of teaching?
This quote has not influenced my notion of teaching because I don’t think it fully applies to me. This might seem shocking but here is my rational. I am in somewhat of a unique situation from most Instructors. I am going to be an Instructor in a program that is regulated and accredited by Transport Canada. This means that the courses have very defined components and defined methods to teach those components. The work of course development for Aviation is done at a Federal level. Transport Canada mandates how many hours of instruction various topics need to have. Transport Canada has done all the Taxonomy work, determined the learning outcomes, and the level of testing required. The role of Chief Instructor at BCIT is to manage those requirements and oversee that the school is meeting them. What this all means is that I am not sure I will have any ability to determine how the course is managed. I will have defined lesson plan requirements and a defined amount hands on time. I understand that the best way to learn a trade is with hands on tactile learning, I just am not sure if I will have any control over the amount of that time. As I have not taught yet, it remains to be seen how much flexibility I will have in the delivery of the material. If it is up to me it will be vary hand on a problem-centered, as it’s the best way to teach adults, and the only way to teach trades. If I have very little control over content, I will have to use other techniques to engage the students and hopefully they learn.
Objective: What caught my attention?
At first I did not agree with this, it was almost an immediate reaction to the quote. I’ve been reading it all over the place, everything to do with Andragogy always lists Knowles assumptions about adult learners. I began to think about this more and more, and still wonder if it’s true. What about the general interest course? I think that there are exceptions to these characteristics of adult learners, they are not scientific laws. I find it hard to believe that all adult learners are seeking knowledge to solve some immediate problem.
Reflective: What did I realize about teaching as a result of this quote?
If adults are problem centered, then the teaching needs to be immediately relevant and applicable to the problem at hand. I have already taken the 3210 course; I can see now why the instructor let everyone choose their own topics to develop into a course. Practically everyone picked something that they had an interest in. Some students were actually taking a course as a work requirement, and needed to develop a course for their place of employment. It’s a clear example of this principle, the adults had a real problem, and were very engaged when developing their DACUM charts because it was relevant and solved this problem. I personally would have been very un-interested in developing some randomly assigned course that were of no interest to me, or presented no solution to any problem I had. I have realized that as an adult teacher it will be very important to instruct in a way that provides solutions the problems at hand. What I am not entirely clear on is how we will apply that to a set curriculum?
Interpretive: The Aha moment and key insight
As with the first quote, there was no Aha moment; I had to ponder this quote to get an understanding of where I wanted to go with it. This quote is encouraging to me because I am a very problem solving type of person. I will relate to the student in their quest to get an answer right and will enjoy applying the lessons to the applicable problems. A key insight for me is that as educators we will have to be very cognitive of the fact that adults learn by applying what we teach to real world problems. We will have to be very clear what the lesson plans are and how to relate the topic to a real world scenario, or class room exercise to facilitate learning.
Decisional: How has this quote influenced my notion of teaching?
This quote has not influenced my notion of teaching because I don’t think it fully applies to me. This might seem shocking but here is my rational. I am in somewhat of a unique situation from most Instructors. I am going to be an Instructor in a program that is regulated and accredited by Transport Canada. This means that the courses have very defined components and defined methods to teach those components. The work of course development for Aviation is done at a Federal level. Transport Canada mandates how many hours of instruction various topics need to have. Transport Canada has done all the Taxonomy work, determined the learning outcomes, and the level of testing required. The role of Chief Instructor at BCIT is to manage those requirements and oversee that the school is meeting them. What this all means is that I am not sure I will have any ability to determine how the course is managed. I will have defined lesson plan requirements and a defined amount hands on time. I understand that the best way to learn a trade is with hands on tactile learning, I just am not sure if I will have any control over the amount of that time. As I have not taught yet, it remains to be seen how much flexibility I will have in the delivery of the material. If it is up to me it will be vary hand on a problem-centered, as it’s the best way to teach adults, and the only way to teach trades. If I have very little control over content, I will have to use other techniques to engage the students and hopefully they learn.