Andragogy

Today in Pinnacle we had a special guest speaker, Doctor Judy Moore, Principal at North Gaston High School.  Dr. Moore did her dissertation on Andragogy and was asked to come and share with us.

For those, like myself before today, who may not know what Andragogy is, I'll give you a brief explanation.
Andragogy is a collection of adult learning principles applicable to all adult learning experiences. (Knowles, Holton and Swanson, 2005.)

Dr. Moore spoke about the differences in Pedagogy, a method and practice of teaching, to adolescents, and Andragogy.  She started out by asking us to search online for some traditional lesson plans.  The key word being "traditional", we all quickly searched for the longest, most boring, horrible lesson plans we could find. She then asked us to skim through the lesson plans we choose and review them. The point of this task wasn't to find "bad" lesson plans, it was to reflect upon our thought process from the moment we started searching to the present moment of discussion.  There was a common theme across the room: experience. We all used prior experience to find these lesson plans.  Some drew from past experience of sitting in class and being a victim of these "bad" lesson plans, others from the experience of writing similar lesson plans to be told that they were "bad", or the experience of seeing these "bad" lesson plans in our college classes as examples of what not to do.  That's how adults learn, from experiences.

The discussion then moved into brainstorming other commonalities between teaching our students and adult behaviors.  As educators, we attend loads of professional development meetings, PLCs, and faculty meetings.  Dr. Moore asked us to think about the way we felt while sitting through those meetings.  As people began sharing answers that they thought Dr. Moore wanted to hear, she quickly changed the mood by sharing her personal experience, "I sit there and become silently violent".  This brought about laughter and honest answers from around the room.  Each answer added to the list of characteristics of adult learners.

Principals of adult learners:
1.  Adult learners are self-directed.  They have a choice about what they want to learn.  We get to choose.
2. Adults use experience to process and attach new learning.
3. Adults learn best when it is relevant to them.

Time.  Time is a key factor in all areas of adult learning.

Adults have the opportunity to choose what they want to learn about.  They choose topics based upon personal interest, topics that will be beneficial to them in their personal or professional life, or sometimes their topic choice will spring from a personal internal issue that motivates them.

How does this apply for Pinnacle?

As a part of Pinnacle 19, part of my responsibility is to be a technology leader in my school.  I will be helping other teachers and passing along information learned at my workshops.  In order to effectively instruct other teachers, I need to understand how adults learn.  As a teacher, I know how valuable time is.  Adults do not want their time wasted and they prefer learning to be paced to their needs.  By taking all these factors into consideration I can reach out to my fellow co-workers and productively support them as a pinnacle leader.