Adult Learning

11.1 It is likely that adults coming to study at the Northern College have already been taught in school and other educational institutions, in informal settings and in the workplace. This implies that they are not starting as - so to speak - a blank sheet; rather they have had a great deal of experience of learning. For some this experience might have been rewarding and pleasurable, whilst for others it might have been unrewarding and painful. The learning experience which adults have gained during their lives has a profound impact on their attitudes to learning and plays an important part in any of their learning activities in the future.

	Learner Comments
	"It's in an adult environment that we study here. We're a nice mixture of adults, ranging from around 24 to around 74. We've all come here with our own individual learning experiences, and we're been able to share them." "My experience of learning at Northern College is so different from my experience of learning at school. At school we had to memorise facts and reproduce them in the examinations. At Northern College we try to make sense of facts and see how they fit together. This helps us to understand the whole picture and not worry too much about all the details." "I guess my whole perception of the nature of learning has changed. At school nobody was interested in what I thought. Here tutors are genuinely interested in what I think." "I think the teaching today is very different from my instruction at school. Learning at the College has, for me, been very informative and has left me with greater confidence and the ability to implement the skills taught."

11.2 If tutors are going to be effective in teaching adults, they should not ignore the fact that adults come to learning with unique sets of experiences and approach learning activities with pre-conceived ideas about what they set out to learn and how they are going to do it.

11.3 Increasingly tutors are expected to teach in a way in which they can show that learning has taken place. This, of course, implies that they should try to grapple with the vexed question, what is learning? No attempt will be made to answer this question in any depth here. Suffice to say the term 'learning' can be seen as encompassing knowledge, skills and understanding. Learning thus implies that students acquire knowledge, skills and understanding in a form in which they can retain, retrieve and apply newly acquired learning.

11.4 One way to understand learning is to see it as a transactional or contractual process in which tutors and students alike agree to do something of mutual benefit so that the desired outcomes are achieved. This may take time but the process can be accelerated if tutors:

• allow students to articulate their learning needs
  
  
• give students the opportunity to discuss their perceived barriers to learning
  
  
• enable students to actively and creatively contribute to the learning situation
  
  
• provide students with constructive feedback and praise so that they feel supported and valued
  
  
• value experiences of past learning situations
  
  
• encourage students to respect others in their class or in the broader learning community
  
  
• help students to be free from narrow-mindedness and prejudice

	Case study
	The account below shows how a tutor's encouragement to talk allows students to see themselves as resourceful people…. Students are offered the chance to talk or make oral presentations about a topic related to their course. Once they get going, they are likely to bring out valid past experiences to support the work or research that they are currently undertaking. Almost without realising it, they use their experiences to impart knowledge to others, and in the process they all learn from each other. Ultimately they come to realise that they have had all kinds of valid experiences in their lifetime, which is often disregarded but which forms in fact a very important learning tool.

1.5 Another way of understanding learning is to distinguish the learning which takes place in the cognitive domain from that which takes place in the affective domain. Cognitive learning runs in tandem with affective learning so that at the same time as students acquire knowledge their behaviour as learners also changes. They begin not just to feel good about the learning process but to value it. This helps them to appreciate the role that knowledge plays which, in turn, encourages them to learn further.

	Learner Comments
	"The course has made me review my whole attitude to history. In future I shall no longer be satisfied with one version of events, but will seek other accounts so as to put together the jigsaw of facets of the truth. I have learnt to pick out emotive, prejudiced accounts and to extract the bare bones of the truth. I have learnt that historians use primary sources on which to base their history books (secondary sources) and these give facts, but also contain conjecture. It is great fun to distinguish between these."

11.6 Learning is frequently thought of in terms of adding more knowledge to an existing store. But this is a misconceived view. Learning is concerned not just with adding more knowledge but with bringing about change to pre-existing knowledge or its understanding. This is particularly the case with adult learning. Adults can be seen engaging with their learning not in a passive way but in a way that makes possible internalisation and transformation.

11.7 Adult students approach their learning in many different ways. They can thus be seen not just as developing different learning styles but as preferring some styles over others. Those responsible for organising teaching and learning must take into account how students prefer to learn and how they might be helped to learn more effectively.

11.8 It is possible to identify in any group of students at least four learning styles, each having its own characteristics. The table here lists the main characteristics of these styles.

No one style should be seen as better than another. Whilst a student may have a dominant style (say style A), he or she may also adopt aspects of other styles.

11.9 Tutors can be more effective in addressing the problems that students might experience if time is spent to identify various learning styles.

11.10 All those who are involved in organising teaching and learning in the Northern College or other adult educational institutions would benefit from having some knowledge of the different theories that explain how students and more especially adults learn. They would also benefit from having some knowledge of the works of a number of scholars who have contributed to theoretical knowledge on adult education (e.g. Paulo Freire, Malcolm Knowles, Carl Rogers, etc.). This Guide will make no attempt to discuss the different theories of learning except to stress that they are worth exploring for the insights, practical or otherwise, that they provide with regard to student\adult learning.