1. Training Module Summary
Assumptions about adult learning
Learning environments that honor these assumptions
Methods to foster these environments

2. Concerns and Issues Managing classroom of “grown-ups”
Motivating participants to learn
Encouraging skill development across the curriculum
Providing meaning feedback

3. “Integrated Instruction”
Fostering learning in multiple ways
Fostering multiple forms of learning
Helping learners make connections
Disciplines or subjects
Subject matter and experience
Cognition and emotion
Self and world

4. Assumptions About Adult Learning
Deeply involves the self
Occurs in particular contexts
Involves making connections within the learning environment
Reflects meaning-making
“…school should be a safe place, the way home is supposed to be. A place where you belong, where you can grow and express yourself freely, where you know and care for the other people and are known and care for by them” (p. 127) From: J. Tompkins, A Life in School

5. Instructional Environments for Adult Learners
Active
Collaborative
Thematic
Relevant & problem-oriented
Opportunities for practice

6. Teaching Methods to Foster Effective Learning Environments
Modified lecture
Collaborative learning strategies
Feedback

7. Why Lecture?
“It is a tradition. It was part of my training and seems like what I should be doing. I somehow feel guilty when I am not lecturing.” From: T. Creed (1986), “Why we lecture, Symposium: A St. John’s Faculty Journal, 5,

8. The Modified Lecture Two minute pauses for clarification
Small group work on a discussion question
Use of student-generated questions

9. Moving Toward a Learning Paradigm
“I could never fool myself into believing that what I had to say was ultimately more important to the students than what they had thought and felt. I had learned that each student was a walking field of energy teeming with agendas. I had to conduct my classes so as to tap into the energy field and elicit those agendas” (p) From: J. Tompkins, A Life in School

10. Collaborative Learning Strategies
Cooperative learning
Focused on specific, well-structured learning task
Short periods of time
Case studies, problem-based learning
Focused on case scenarios or real-life problems
Learning tasks are more uncertain, ambiguous
Intermediate time frames - single class session to a few weeks

11. Learning Community Wide variety in and out of classroom
Longer time frame - weeks to a semester
Often involves work with other disciplines
Focus on multiple problems
Emphasis on social as well as academic aspects of learning
Generally integrates more aspects of learning process

12. Possible Examples of Learning Communities
Theme: Ways of knowing
Foundations of Inquiry
Introduction to Philosophy
Contemporary Issues in Science and Technology

13. Use of Feedback Focus on Quality - criterion-based
Appropriateness to task

14. Kinds of feedback strategies
Peer
Teacher
Timing:Frequent and focused

15. Debriefing Focus on process issues
Was the task and objectives clear to everyone?
Did everyone have a chance to participate?
How were decisions made?
Were emotions and feelings recognized and honored?
Recommendations for improvement of group process

16. Summary
Fostering adult learning calls for integrated approaches to teaching
Integrated instruction helps adults make connections
Subject matter is a pathway to lead the self out into the world
By coming to know the world, our learners come to know themselves