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What is ANDRAGOGY?
In order to answer this, let’s first explore another question…
Who learns more easily: adults or children?
When we see a question like this one, we tend to answer that children are better at learning.
After all, children have a younger brain, they absorb like a brand new sponge whatever
is taught to them.
But, why wouldn't you, as an adult, also have that ability?
Science shows that you do.
Adult education has been researched about within many fields of study.
One of the greatest researchers about this topic was Malcolm Knowels, who popularized
the term Andragogy.
Just as Pedagogy is the science that deals with child education, Andragogy is the science
of adult education.
And there is some good news: adults are as capable of learning as children are, and,
on top of that, they have some extra advantages.
Adults have, at least, 5 extra advantages over children when it comes to learning.
Malcolm Knowles concluded that there are five premises of adult education.
These are the five advantages adults have that children don’t have when they are learning.
Their first advantage is Self-concept.
Whilst most children are forced to learn a predefined set of subjects, adults are free
to choose what they’re going to study.
Additionally, adults are also more able to make their own decisions and decide how, where
and when they’re going to study.
Advantage number two is the Adult Learner Experience.
Adults have already learnt a lot of things in life.
That’s why adults can use that experience to find shortcuts and learn faster.
Adults can transfer ideas and concepts they already know to other subjects to make analogies
and learn the new subjects they’re studying more effectively.
The third advantage is their Readiness to Learn.
Adults are more interested in learning about things that are related to real situations
of their day to day.
While children are forced to study abstract topics far removed from their everyday lives,
adults usually study subjects of their immediate interest.
Advantage number four is their Orientation to Learning.
Adults prioritize studying subjects that can be put into practice.
This priority results in a learning focused on practical day to day problems.
The fifth and last advantage is their own Motivation to Learn.
When it is you who decides you’re going to learn something, your intrinsic motivation
is greater.
That’s different from what happens with children, who oftentimes depend on extrinsic
motivating factors such as marks or pep talks from their parents and teachers.
Now let’s return to the question that started this conversation.
Who learns more easily: adults or children?
Science is clear when it answers this question.
Adults can learn as well as children.
And adults have the extra advantages of being more autonomous, of having more experience
and of being ready and motivated to learn and apply what they learnt.
Let’s say that you, an adult, have decided to learn something new.
In order to enhance your career.
Or to improve in some aspect of your life.
Or simply to acquire a new ability.
Well, you can be sure that you’re able to learn anything as good as anyone else, of
any age.
Use the principles of andragogy to your advantage.
Learn in a participative, relevant and practical way experiencing what you learn.
There are four basic principles of adult learning.
If you follow these four principles, you’ll get to learn anything you want in a faster,
more fun and more effective way.
Initially you have to involve yourself in the planning and evaluation of what you’re
going to learn.
We’ve already talked about the metalearning map on episode 175 of the series Hello!
Seiiti Arata.
[Source: https://arata.se/hello175]
Malcolm Knowles calls this plan Self-Directed Learning.
Forget about delegating your learning process to others.
When you’re going to study something, don’t make the mistake of simply doing a course.
Don’t let other people plan what you’re going to learn and evaluate what you know.
Instead of that, even before starting to study, sit down and plan what you actually want to
learn.
What are YOUR needs?
How are YOU going to evaluate whether you’re learning or not?
When you do this meta learning map, you’re designing a study program targeted specially
to you.
Only you can do that.
The support of teachers and other education professionals is important; but, as an adult,
you need to be in charge of your own learning.
Secondly, you can’t be afraid of experiences.
Experiments provide the basis for your learning.
And that includes the mistakes you make when you do those experiments.
For example, at the beginning you may think that you’re going to learn a new language
attending classes on the internet.
But after some lessons, you realize you aren’t learning anything.
In that case you can’t get stuck on your mistake.
You must try another solution until you find the best learning method for YOU.
The third basic principle is that you learn more easily things that have to do with your
day to day life.
The bigger the impact and relevance of what you’re studying, the better.
The fourth and last principle is directly linked to the third one.
This last principle of Andragogy states that adult learning is more effective when it focuses
on problem solving.
This means that you don’t need to first study the theory and then apply it in your
life.
Instead of that, it’s better to take a practical problem you’re facing and see how to solve
it.
The Andragogical Learning Flow comes with a script for you to learn more and better.
Andragogy doesn’t only deal with theories about how adults learn better.
There are practical suggestions for you to apply to your life and increase your ability
to learn.
One of those suggestions is the Andragogical Learning Flow, created as some kind of script,
a sequence of five steps that will help you learn more effectively.
The first step is having a good learning environment.
A good learning environment is when your surroundings foster your studies.
The environment doesn’t only include your teachers, but also the materials you use,
the physical or virtual course facilities, and even the people who learn with you.
The second step is making a diagnosis of your needs.
Why do you want to learn the things you want to learn?
What’s behind that desire?
Is it some practical need for your work or your personal life?
Is it a hidden desire?
Is it out of vanity?
Besides the reasons why, you must also be clear about the “what”.
What specifically do you want to learn?
What topics would you need to master in order to reach the desired results?
What does it mean to master those topics?
The third step is making your planning, your meta learning map.
Plan what you’re going to study, when you’re going to study, what materials you’re going
to use.
The fourth step of the flow is conducting learning experiences.
Adults learn better when they solve practical problems.
So, try to start solving problems and, whenever you find it hard, go back to the theory to
solve that specific problem.
The fifth and last step is judging what you’ve learnt.
That can be done by teachers, by practical results in exams and tests, by automated systems.
The most important thing is that you evaluate whether what you’ve learnt is consistent
with the results you expected to get in the planning phase.
By following the Andragogical Learning Flow you can gain abilities that will bring results
into your life.
Put andragogy into practice to make your professional and personal life better.
Learning how to learn is one of the most important abilities any person can have, especially
adults.
Take a look at your biggest life objectives.
Earning more money.
Furthering your career.
Buying a house.
Having a better body.
Improving your relationships.
Whatever your objective is, you can reach that goal in a faster and more effective way.
You just need to learn how to overcome the obstacles that lie between you and your objective.
Learning doesn’t just mean sitting down with books to pass exams.
You must see learning as a tool for the practical solution of your day-to-day problems.
First of all, when you’re designing the map of what you’re going to study, you have
to make sure you know why you’re studying each of those subjects.
Then, the studies should be focused on practical tasks instead of on memorisation.
Memorisation has its own place, and it has to be used in certain cases, but, in adult
learning, practice always prevails.
Apart from that, the learning process must be carried out taking into account that every
person is different.
The materials and learning activities must be adapted to the learner, and not the other
way around.
Last, the study must allow you to discover new knowledge on your own.
Even though materials and teachers guide you and correct your mistakes, the ideal is that
the ones you choose let you get to your own conclusions.
Choose an environment that promotes adult learning.
The chosen environment has a direct impact on how much you learn.
The environment in which you study is extremely important to your learning results.
When I say environments, I’m talking about the materials you choose, the teachers, the
platform of your online course, or the physical facilities in the case of face-to-face courses.
It is best to have an environment that supports your individual needs.
If you are in a shared environment, it must respect the knowledge level and the skills
of every individual.
That’s why courses with a lot of students usually don’t work too well.
Unless there’s a more customized support for each student.
The learning environment also has to value creativity and experience.
Leave aside old-fashioned concepts like grades and the punishment and mockery of mistakes.
The environment must value each adult as an individual worthy of respect and honour for
being in search of learning new things.
Besides that, it is recommended that the environment promotes self-directed learning.
Teachers, courses, materials, all the factors involved should co-create the lessons together
with the adult learners.
You know you’re in a good learning environment when you realize your level of intellectual
skills is being challenged.
The learning can be neither too easy, as not to develop boredom, nor too difficult, as
not to foster giving up.
Finally, the environment must give constant and precise feedback about your progress.
The best thing is getting quick feedback about each phase of the learning process, so that
you feel you’re actually advancing and moving forward.
The results of andragogy can turn you into a better person.
And better people build a better society.
The formal educational system has as one of its main goals to train people to be productive
and contribute to society.
Those people are citizens-governors, which means people who understand their role in
society.
People who don’t just keep waiting for the government to solve their problems, but who
act in practice to create a better society.
There are seven desired results of adult education.
The first one is that the adult who studies will gain self-knowledge.
These people will understand their needs, motivation and interests.
And this leads them to personal development and to self respect.
Beyond that, adults with a better education are better citizens.
They learn to respect different opinions, to have empathy, to help people in need.
Better citizens have a more positive, more fluid and dynamic attitude towards life.
That brings them to positive attitudes, such as resilience, acceptance of changes and the
identification of learning opportunities.
Andragogy also leads to a greater clarity to discern symptoms and causes.
An adult who knows how to treat the causes, goes straight to the root of problems.
But the people who never learn how to learn, can spend their whole lives treating symptoms,
putting out fires, carrying water to the sea.
When you become a learning adult, you gain more clarity about your own personality.
You begin to identify which are your strengths and which are your weaknesses.
Education helps you have a better balance and reach your full potential.
The greater your ability to learn, the better your understanding of human nature as a whole.
You’ll be more clear about what your personal values are.
And you will also understand that different people value different things.
And the better you know human nature, the more capable you become of contributing to
make positive changes in society.
That’s why andragogy is able to transform not just your own life, but the lives of everyone
around you.
Andragogy is the art and the science of adult education.
As an adult, you can learn as good as a child or even better.
Regardless of what your life goals are, you can reach them all more easily if you have
the ability to learn how to learn.
Adults who are able to acquire new knowledge are more likely to find better jobs, higher
salaries and a more satisfying life as a whole.
Arata Academy has always been focused on adult education and is now launching a new training
program aimed to enhance your intelligence, your memory, your ability to learn.
You can check out this new Intelligence course by clicking here right now https://arata.se/intelligence