All the learners in the three following scenarios
are adult learners, yet each is at a different stage in his or her learning.
Use the circles to the right to represent what layers of meaning you would
add when teaching the learner(s) in the specific scenario, or use the circles
to represent what layer of understanding the learner is adding to his or
her own learning.
1. While most of the students in your
chemistry class simply want the facts, you have the joy of getting to teach
one student whose true passion is chemistry. She knows the formulas, processes,
and materials and really is ready to start thinking more abstractly about
the field of chemistry.
2. Dave has been noodling with the trumpet
for about a year now, mostly out of interest, and he has just discovered
that if he times his finger movements just so, he gets the "right feeling"
he wants in his playing. For the next few months, Dave plays with variations
of this fingering and timing to see what results they produce.
3. You are teaching a workshop on basic
word processing, and you know that you will have a room full of people who
either don't work on computers at all or don't like working on computers.
We all develop our own life stories that add to the richness of our experiences,
and current research on adult learning supports the notion that experience
factors heavily in adult learning (Merriam
& Caffarella, 2000). By letting adults share their stories,
you are letting them share their experiences in a way that lets them capitalize
on the knowledge they already have and that helps them add a layer of
understanding that better integrates the content for them.
Drag the circles to the right to form concentric
rings of adult learning. Yes, the order is already determined for you. However,
as you add the next layer in this visual, consider what teaching strategies
will help you add that layer of learning for your mature learners.
