Adult Learning Characteristics
and
Instructional Design
The teaching methods used to deliver a course, the way it is experienced by the learners, has a major impact on its success. The best content possible is of little value if it is not well received by the learners. Therefore, when we decide the cognitive and affective domain objectives for a course, we must also focus on the instructional design, that is, the processes and methods used to achieve those objectives. These teaching methods need to match the adult learning principles and characteristics.
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Adult learners:
- Need to know why they need to learn this
Based on learning principles 4, 7 and 9.
Adults must be convinced that the course information is needed for them to be able to achieve some personally meaningful objective.
- Show learners the relationship between their own objectives and the new information or value.
- Allow learners to assess their individual learning needs.
- Provide content and process options to meet individual needs and interests.
- Introduce each new content area with an explanation of how it is related to students' own objectives.
- End each module or course with a group discussion of the question, "How will I use what was just covered?"
- Assign students to small teams working on different problem-solving exercises, according to the results of self-assessment tests that reveal individual needs.
- During module introduction, describe how the skills, knowledge, values and/or attitudes to be covered relate to typical learners' needs..
- Ask job and personal need related questions during class introductions and post-course evaluations..
- Use job and life related terms (acronyms, technical terms, etc.) in the titles of assignment options for efficient and accurate selection by students.
- Use case studies that feature jobs and situations familiar to the students.
- When using photography to demonstrate what the learners need to do, show situations similar to those the students experience.
- Encourage students to use their individual needs as the basis for project selection.
Based on learning principles 4, 5, 11 and 12
Adults must actively participate in the learning process and know where they are in the learning process.
- Allow learners to take responsibility for, and have maximum control over, their own learning.
- Allow learners to "discover" new information rather than be "told." Allow learners to learn by doing.
- Provide instructional cues enabling learner to gauge personal progress.
- In face to face classes let students participate by questioning, responding to questions, discussion, role-playing, etc, every 10 minutes.
- Require the students to demonstrate performance at least once per week or class session.
- Use visuals mainly to support discussion rather than to impart information.
- Use case studies or media clips that simulate job and life situations. Let students come to conclusions about them before giving the "right answers."
- Actively involve students in more than just screen page-turning through use of reading, and "off computer" research and projects as often as logically possible.
- Enable students to select the path, the pace and the progression of their own learning.
Based on learning principles 3 and 7
Adults need to relate what they already know and have done to the new information.
- Make use of learners' experiences as a valuable source for learning.
- Allow learners to share their experiences with other students as much as possible.
- Relate new information in terms of prior experience.
- Consistently ask students to discuss issues, bringing their own experience to the whole group.
- Introduce topics with a vignette that relates to students' experience.
- Question students about their backgrounds as part of the class introductions and then allow projects to be tailored to the individual's background.
- Constantly use group discussion for sharing, using leading questions, in every content area.
- Establish a supportive climate in class to provide students with enough comfort to be willing to share experiences.
- Know your audience well before designing the scenarios, projects, case studies, etc.... check relevancy to prior experience with potential students.
- Give students assignments discuss certain issues with their peers who are not in this class and then return to the course with findings that are used as a part of the class.
Based on learning principle 1
Adults need to know how the new information will help them solve their problems.
- Present new information in the context of solutions to learners' perceived problems.
- Focus on the learners' existing problems rather than abstract concepts.
- Emphasize "need to know" rather than "nice to know."
- Present life related problems for the group (or small teams or pairs of individuals) to solve, before giving the "right" answer.
- Always tie content areas to specific real life problems-or ask students to do so.
- Bring an abstract notion, like "supervision," to reality by creating a case study or using media clip for students to consider.
- Check with students to make sure the class projects and discussions are relevant.
- Use relevant and real life projects, problems and simulations.
- Ask students for feedback on the relevance and appropriateness of class assignments.
Based on learning principles 2 and 10
Adults must immediately apply the new information and skills.
- Require learners to new practice skills within the context of the course.
- Limit information presentation before moving into practice and application of the information.
- At least once per module, ask students to imitate good performance by using invented dialogues, small groups or other methods for practicing application.
- Have students design their own presentations on key issues/concepts/practices and require that they reference situations that might really occur when applying what is learned.
- The application of the new information should occur soon after the information is presented ... it may be applied in a fuller context later as well (e.g., use a case study that builds over several exercises or a projects that progresses over the duration of the course).
- Build the course so students are applying what they are learning during the course.
- If a course is part of a series draw on the learners application of the previous class as input to their work in this class.
- When "correct" and "incorrect" answers are given to exercise questions, make sure that you present how the correct answers affect the application.
Based on learning principles 13
Adults must receive feedback soon after they apply the new information or evidence some new value.
- Projects should be graded returned to the students within in 48 hours of the due date.
- Take time to praise and encourage students outside the classroom environment.
- Give recognition for success and remediation for errors. Explain why the learner is either right or wrong.
- Provide ways for students to receive feedback: from the instructor, from the other students, from members in a small team, etc.
- Always debrief a team exercise with the group, commenting on their successful process as well as their outcomes.
- Suggest ways to find help without having to be asked for it by providing reference lists in the student guide ... use private sessions to offer other resources for remediation.
- Give reasons behind the right answers, but acknowledge close-but-incorrect answers and incorrect ones as good efforts. Give reasons why someone might give that incorrect answer and then explain the better approach to reach the correct one.
- Feedback should encourage learning from the mistakes.
- If remediation is necessary, clearly mark the remediation path ... make it easily accessible and no-risk so learner will be encouraged to take advantage of it..
Based on learning principles 6, 8 and 9
Adults have well-developed learning patterns that normally are whole-part-whole learning.
- Introduce the whole concept, break into its parts, then reconstruct the whole again.
- Involve both analytic and intuitive thinking to cover all types of learning patterns.
- Offer learners choice in pace and sequence of instruction if at all possible.
- The sequence of information should be to introduce the whole concept, then break it apart and explain each part, then reconstruct the whole again, letting students make the synthesis through demonstration of the whole skill or concept.
- Make sure that all the senses are involved in the learning process as much as possible ... some people learn mainly from hearing information, others from seeing graphics, others from telling others the information, others from actually touching or handling the processes being described.
- Use a variety of training techniques in any one module involving both analytic and intuitive thinking.
- A course or program which depends solely on words will not be as effective as one which intersperses pictures, graphics, color, motion, etc.... whenever possible. However the total of the content must be in words to allow for handicap access to the material.
- Pictures and graphs may augment words ... especially for showing relationships between the parts of a whole or for showing the whole itself.
Based on Knowles, Malcolm Shepherd. The Adult Learner: A Neglected Species. Fourth edition. Huston, TX: Gulf Publishing Company, 1990, and other sources.
