Best practice criteria in adult learning is derived from the work of Malcolm Knowles, an informal adult education researcher and practitioner.
Malcolm Knowles, informal adult education, self-direction and andragogy – infed.org:
citation: Smith, M. K. (2002) ‘Malcolm Knowles, informal adult education, self-direction and andragogy’, The encyclopedia of pedagogy and informal education. [https://infed.org/mobi/malcolm-knowles-informal-adult-education-self-direction-and-andragogy/.
The summary of Knowles' life is badly written and without much purpose compared to a discussion of his ideas on informal adult education. Below is an excerpt of his writings.
Exhibit 1: Malcolm S. Knowles on informal adult education
The major problems of our age deal with human relations; the solutions can be found only in education. Skill in human relations is a skill that must be learned; it is learned in the home, in the school, in the church, on the job, and wherever people gather together in small groups.
This fact makes the task of every leader of adult groups real, specific, and clear: Every adult group, of whatever nature, must become a laboratory of democracy, a place where people may have the experience of learning to live co-operatively. Attitudes and opinions are formed primarily in the study groups, work groups, and play groups with which adults affiliate voluntarily. These groups are the foundation stones of our democracy. Their goals largely determine the goals of our society. Adult learning should produce at least these outcomes:
Adults should acquire a mature understanding of themselves. They should understand their needs, motivations, interests, capacities, and goals. They should be able to look at themselves objectively and maturely. They should accept themselves and respect themselves for what they are, while striving earnestly to become better.
Adults should develop an attitude of acceptance, love, and respect toward others. This is the attitude on which all human relations depend. Adults must learn to distinguish between people and ideas, and to challenge ideas without threatening people. Ideally, this attitude will go beyond acceptance, love, and respect, to empathy and the sincere desire to help others.
Adults should develop a dynamic attitude toward life. They should accept the fact of change and should think of themselves as always changing. They should acquire the habit of looking at every experience as an opportunity to learn and should become skillful in learning from it.
Adults should learn to react to the causes, not the symptoms, of behavior. Solutions to problems lie in their causes, not in their symptoms. We have learned to apply this lesson in the physical world, but have yet to learn to apply it in human relations.
Adults should acquire the skills necessary to achieve the potentials of their personalities. Every person has capacities that, if realized, will contribute to the well-being of himself and of society. To achieve these potentials requires skills of many kinds—vocational, social, recreational, civic, artistic, and the like. It should be a goal of education to give each individual those skills necessary for him to make full use of his capacities.
Adults should understand the essential values in the capital of human experience. They should be familiar with the heritage of knowledge, the great ideas, the great traditions, of the world in which they live. They should understand and respect the values that bind men together.
Adults should understand their society and should be skillful in directing social change. In a democracy the people participate in making decisions that affect the entire social order. It is imperative, therefore, that every factory worker, every salesman, every politician, every housewife, know enough about government, economics, international affairs, and other aspects of the social order to be able to take part in them intelligently.
The society of our age, as Robert Maynard Hutchins warns us, cannot wait for the next generation to solve its problems. Time is running out too fast. Our fate rests with the intelligence, skill, and goodwill of those who are now the citizen-rulers. The instrument by which their abilities as citizen-rulers can be improved is adult education. This is our problem. This is our challenge.
Malcolm S. Knowles (1950) Informal Adult Education, Chicago: Association Press, pages 9-10.
While the concept of andragogy had been in spasmodic usage since the 1830s it was Malcolm Knowles who popularized its usage for English language readers. For Knowles, andragogy was premised on at least four crucial assumptions about the characteristics of adult learners that are different from the assumptions about child learners on which traditional pedagogy is premised. A fifth was added later.
1. Self-concept: As a person matures his self concept moves from one of being a dependent personality toward one of being a self-directed human being
2. Experience: As a person matures he accumulates a growing reservoir of experience that becomes an increasing resource for learning.
3. Readiness to learn. As a person matures his readiness to learn becomes oriented increasingly to the developmental tasks of his social roles.
4. Orientation to learning. As a person matures his time perspective changes from one of postponed application of knowledge to immediacy of application, and accordingly his orientation toward learning shifts from one of subject-centeredness to one of problem centredness.
5. Motivation to learn: As a person matures the motivation to learn is internal
Citation: Knowles, M. S. et al (1984) Andragogy in Action. Applying modern principles of adult education, San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
Knowles puts forward three immediate reasons for self-directed learning. First he argues that there is convincing evidence that people who take the initiative in learning (proactive learners) learn more things, and learn better, than do people who sit at the feet of teachers passively waiting to be taught (reactive learners). ‘They enter into learning more purposefully and with greater motivation. They also tend to retain and make use of what they learn better and longer than do the reactive learners.’
self-directed learning is more in tune with our natural processes of psychological development.
‘Students entering into these programs without having learned the skills of self-directed inquiry will experience anxiety, frustration , and often failure, and so will their teachers
Malcolm Knowles defined andragogy as the art and science of helping adults learn as against pedagogy as the art and science of teaching children.
Knowles, M. S. (1975) Self-Directed Learning. A guide for learners and teachers, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall/Cambridge. 135 pages.
9 Principles for Best Practice in Adult Education by Zepke, Nugent & Leach, 2011
- Enhance students’ self-belief
• Enable students to work autonomously, enjoy relationships with others and feel they are competent to achieve their own objectives
• Be ‘present’ for your students
• Create learning that is active and fosters learning relationships
• Create educational experiences for students that are challenging, enriching and extend their academic abilities
• Ensure that your classroom culture is welcoming to students from diverse backgrounds
• Adapt to students expectations
• Enable students to become active citizens
• Enable students to develop their social and cultural capital.
Review of their book with abstract and summaries of major points
Gilmore, G., & Connelly, D. (2012). Reflection to Transformation: A self-help book for teachers. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies, 47(1), 168-171. https://ezproxy.sit.ac.nz:2050/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proquest.com%2Fscholarly-journals%2Freflection-transformation-self-help-book-teachers%2Fdocview%2F1237818374%2Fse-2%3Faccountid%3D46872
What is SIT's criteria for best practices in teaching? Is this on QMS?
Check out the job/position description for my job. What does it list as key result areas or indicators of success?
AKO Aotearoa. (2020, November 24). National Tertiary Teaching Excellence Awards 2021 Procedures, Guidelines and Criteria. Ako Aotearoa. https://ako.ac.nz/about-us/our-work/teaching-awards/
a) have maintained, over a significant timeframe, teaching practices that exemplify excellence (above what is considered good practice), foster confidence and promote effective learning appropriate to the particular context and level;
b) are student-centred, meet the needs of students from different backgrounds and capabilities, encourage diversity and reflect on the Aotearoa/New Zealand context as appropriate;
c) are proactive in their own professional development as teachers and content specialists;
d) demonstrate leadership and have made a significant contribution to the teaching practice of colleagues (internal and/or external), to relevant communities and/or to their particular discipline/focus area;
e) systematically collect and use information that informs their practice, from sources such as course/ outcome evaluations, research, self-reflection, appropriately informed colleagues, peer reviews, students, former students and other relevant stakeholders.
f) Support priority learners
Activity 1 on study guide. What are best practice proposals and ways to put them into action? (I think that's what prompt means in this context)
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