Foundation Skills/Learning, teaching and adult learners/Objectives

Objectives
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Learning and Teaching
"Today's adult educators recognize that it is no longer sufficient for teachers to teach and trainers to train. Rather than focus on information acquisition or behavior modification, they have expanded their efforts to emphasize the process of learning and its impact on adult development."

Taylor, K., Marienau, C., & Fiddler, M.(2000). Developing Adult Learners: Strategies for Teachers and Trainers. California, Jossey-Bass Inc. (Cover flap)

What this quotation tells us is that there has been a large shift in education from a focus on what is being taught by the teacher to a focus on the learner and what, why and how they are learning.

Adult Learners
It was Malcolm Knowles in the 1970s who first identified six characteristics of adult learners. An awareness of how adults learn will be beneficial to your teaching context in tertiary education.

Teaching Strategies for Adult Learners
If the characteristics of your learners are very different to that of youth or high school learners, then it may mean that you need to modify your teaching strategies so that you enhance what they learn, why they learn and how they learn. Perhaps it is a good time to consider a few teaching strategies for adult learners and to reflect on how you could use some of these strategies in your own context.

Summary
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