Dr. Arnold T. Hence

Adults:  Are goal oriented  Are autonomous and self directed  Have accumulated a foundation of life experiences  Are relevancy oriented  Need to be shown respect

Jane Vella’s 12 Principles  Needs assessment: Learners need to participate in naming what’s to be learned  Safety: People need safe environments in which to trust themselves to dialogue esp if it may be intentionally transformational  Sound relationship: Friendship but not dependency, fun w/o trivialization of learning

dialogue between men and women who consider themselves as peers.  Sequence and reinforcement: Move from small to big, slow to fast, easy to hard  Action with reflection (praxis) Description, analysis, application, implication  Learners as subjects of their own learning: Decision makers in their own learning process.

 Learning with ideas, feelings and actions  Immediacy: Learning and teaching what is really useful in a particular context  Clear roles: What are you expected to be (professor, mentor, decision-maker, etc)  Teamwork: What kinds are expected in your institutional setting, classroom etc?  Engagement: Helping learners express interest and invest in a learning event

 Accountability: You are accountable to the students and they are accountable to you. Ascertain that learning occurs.  Teach what you proposed to teach, make sure they learn what they were supposed to learn and can demonstrate it. Measurable learning outcomes and assessment

 The Forsyth Tech Learning Centered College Initiative  College wide training in developing and writing measurable outcomes  Mapped all programs  Assessment  Ready for upcoming SACS visit

 The Learning College creates substantive change in individual learners  The Learning College engages learners in the learning process as full partners who must assume primary responsibility for their own choices  The Learning College creates and offers as many options for learning as possible

 The Learning College helps learners to form and participate in collaborative learning activities  The Learning College defines the roles of learning facilitators in response to the needs of the learners  The Learning College and its learning facilitators succeed only when improved and expanded can be documented for learners

 Create and nurture an organizational culture that is open and responsive to change and learning

Food for thought on curriculum development (Derived from Malcolm Knowles)  Pedagogy (“child conductor” in the Greek) does not always fit the needs of the adult learner  Andragogy (the art and science of helping adults learn) provides a better model.  A problem/project orientation; experienced based techniques; facilitation of self motivation to encourage learning

 A student moves from being dependent to being self directed  Students accumulate a growing reservoir of experience that becomes an increasing resource for learning  Student’s readiness to learn becomes oriented increasingly toward the development tasks of his/her social role  Student’s time perspective changes from postponed application of knowledge to immediate application.  The orientation toward learning shifts from subject centered to problem-centered  New models for learning must be developed based on andragogy

Adults  Bring prior experience and knowledge with them. Validate where they are; create allies, not pupils  Want to know what’s in it for them  Enjoy speaking to each other not just listening to you talk  Like to feel like an active part of the learning process

Adults  Expect to be respected  Enjoy active learning, small group exercises and moving around the room  Expect to be able to use what they learn immediately  Learn and different speeds and thru different methods  Need feedback and constructive criticism: Don’t tear ‘em down—build ‘em up