4. FACILITATING ADULT LEARNING In defining what how best to work with adult learners, the educator must first define what is learning. Kenneth Benne (1965) identified three main uses for learning: 1. Learning may be thought of as acquisition and mastery by a person of what is already known on some subject. 2. Learning may also be though of as an extension and clarification of meanings of one's own individual experience. 3. Learning is a process (in which) one tests ideas and generalizations relevant to some delimitable problems, and tests them in some more or less objectified and controlled experiences designed for the purpose. One of the most useful descriptions of the adult learner was written by theorist, John Dollard: "The adult learner is a person who wants something; the adult learner is a person who notices something; the adult learner is a person who does something; the adult learner is a person who gets something" (Kidd, 1973, p. 15). In his investigations in the 1950's at the University of Chicago, Cyril Houle (1951) found there were three types of basic adult learners: 1. The goal-oriented learners who use education for accomplishing fairly clear-cut objectives. These individuals usually did not make any real start on their continuing education until their middle-twenties and after--sometimes much later. 2. The activity-oriented learners who take part because they find in the circumstances of the learning a meaning which has no necessary connection with the content or the announced purpose of the activity. These individuals begin their sustained participation in adult education at the point when their problems or their needs become sufficiently pressing. 3. The learning-oriented learners who seek knowledge for its own sake. Unlike the other types, most learning-oriented adults have been engrossed in learning as long as they can remember (pp. 24-25). Tough's (1970) research was concerned not only with what and why adults learn, but how they learn and what help they obtain for learning. He found that adult learning was a very pervasive activity. "Almost everyone undertakes at least one or two major learning efforts a year, and some individuals undertake as many as 15 or 20. It is common for a man or woman to spend 700 hours a year at some learning project. About 70% of all learning projects are planned by the learner himself, who seeks help and subject matter from a variety of acquaintances, experts, and printed sources (p. 1). He found that his subjects organized their learning efforts around "projects", defined as a series of related episodes, adding up to at least seven hours. In each learning episode more than half of the person's total motivation is to gain and retain certain fairly clear knowledge and skills, or to produce some other lasting change in himself (p. 6). Tough found that his subjects anticipated several desired outcomes and benefits. Some of them are immediate: satisfying a curiosity, enjoying the content itself, enjoying practicing the skill, enjoying the activity of learning. Others were long-run: producing something, imparting knowledge or skill to others, understanding what will happen in some future situation. Pleasure and Self-esteem were critical elements in the motivation of his subjects (p.47). He described how the adult learner proceeds through several phases in the process of engaging in a learning project, and speculated that helping them gain increased competence in dealing with each phase might be one of the most effective ways of improving their learning effectiveness (p. 48). Gagne (1965) specified eight component functions of the instructional situation, representing the ways in which the adult learner's environment acts upon him that must be managed by the instructor: 1. Presenting the stimulus. 2. Directing attention and other learning activities. 3. Providing a model for terminal performance. 4. Furnishing external prompts. 5. Guiding the direction of thinking. 6. Inducing transfer of knowledge. 7. Assessing learning attainments. 8. Providing feedback. These components complement Knowles' (1978) perspective regarding the adult learning experience. The technology of andragogy Knowles (1970) was promoting flowed from this difference in the adult's orientation to learning. 1. The Orientation of Adult Educators - The adult educator must be tuned to concerns of individuals and the institutions they serve. Andragogy calls for adult educators who are person-centered and who don't teach subject matter but rather help persons learn. 2. Organization of the Curriculum - Because adults tend to be problem-centered, the appropriate organizing principles for sequences of adult learning is problem areas not subjects. 3. Design of Learning Experiences - The problem orientation of adult learners implies that adult educators start with the concern most adults on their minds. "What do I hope to get from this course?" (p.48). Kidd (1973) maintained, there would be effective adult learning when certain psychological conditions were met: 1. Stimulus and security: The result of a strong stimulus without something else may be rebellion, withdrawal, rejection, or apathy. The something else needed is a condition of security. By this, Kidd meant that the learner needs to feel at home with himself, sufficiently confident that he can meet the challenge successfully, or he may make no effort at all (p. 120). 2. Dependence and independence: The learner wants to lean on the parent or teacher, to be guided by him. H would like to have the hard tasks done by someone else. At the same time, he wants to assert himself; he wants to dominate, to have people know that he is capable of learning alone (p. 120). 3. Reorganization of previous experience: It is not just experience itself that is a "teacher", but what the experience was and how much experience the person had and what meaning and how it affects the self that is important. The human being is active when learning. He reaches out, he sees, he selects experience, and relates and integrates the new experience into himself (p. 120). 4. Relevance of relationships: Children expect to have to learn things, whether or not they see any meaning in the learning; adults are much less ready to accept learning without clear relevance. Kidd suggested that one of the 3 R's might just stand for Relevance when referring to the adult learner (p. 121). 5. Satisfaction in terms of the learner: Continued learning depends upon the achievement of satisfaction. The satisfaction must be felt in terms of the learner's own expectations and needs. Both interests and attitudes are examples of learned motives. If experience in a particular activity did not occur, with satisfaction, in the first two or three decades of life, the development of that interest in an older person would be far from automatic. But interest can be created and can be changed, if the initiation of interest is undertaken with care (p. 121). Carl Rogers (1969) made the sharpest breaks with the scientific theorists when he wrote: "Teaching is a vastly over-rated function (regarding adults). The imparting of knowledge made sense in an unchanging environment. "If there is one truth about modern man, it is that he lives in an environment which is continually changing," and therefore, the goal of education must be the facilitation of learning (p. 104). The usual method of an active trainer providing information to a passive participant was being challenged by Rogers (1965) and others as the new information age flowed into every educational milieu. The facilitative approach balanced the focus and responsibility of training. Participants were valued input with an investment in training. A facilitative atmosphere was established in the first few moments of training. Four strategies that nurture facilitative training were: neutralizing the trainer-participant relationship; forming a class community using small groups; identifying initial objectives and encouraging learners to formulate post-training learning objectives (Streit & Stein, 1986). The new information age demanded an interdependence of sharing information between trainer and learner (Carkhuff, 1984). As this interdependence to share information and experiences with others continues to grow, traditional roles and relationships would change (Warren, 1979). It was essential that in the first few minutes of training, there was a need to establish a relationship of "working partners" between trainer and learners (Gibbs, 1982). Using discussion groups or dyads in the training setting helped support and make the transition to a facilitative approach in the adult learning environment (Spitzer, 1982). Building on Erikson's principles, Rogers (1951) wrote that "in a general way, therapy is a learning process." He developed nineteen propositions for a theory of personality and behavior which evolved from the study of adults in therapy. This process led him to conceptualize student-centered teaching as parallel to client-centered therapy (pp. 388-391). Rogers formulated five learner-centered approaches to adult education: 1. We cannot teach another person directly; we can only facilitate his learning. 2. A person learns significantly only those things which he perceives as being involved in the maintenance of, or enhancement of, the structure of self. 3. Experience, if assimilated, would involve a change in the organization of self tends to be resisted through denial or distortion of symbolization. 4. The structure and organization of self appear to become more rigid under threat; experience of self can only be assimilated the current organization of self is relaxed and expanded to include it. 5. The educational situation which most effectively promotes significant learning is one in which a threat to the self of the learners is reduced to the minimum and differentiated perception of the field is facilitated (p. 144). Rogers (1969) advanced these guidelines for the facilitation of adult learners: 1. The facilitator has much to do with setting the initial mood or climate of the group or class experience. 2. The facilitator helps to elicit and clarify the purposes of the individuals in the class as well as the more general purposes of the group. 3. He relies upon the desire of each learner to implement those purposes which have meaning for him, as the motivational force behind significant learning. 4. He endeavors to organize and make easily available the widest possible range of resources for learning. 5. He regards himself as a flexible resource to be utilized by the group. 6. In responding to expressions in the classroom group, he accepts both the intellectual content and the emotional attitudes, endeavoring to give each aspect the approximate degree of emphasis which it has for the individual or the group. 7. As the acceptant classroom climate becomes established, the facilitator is able increasingly to become aparticipant learner, a member of the group, expressing views as those of one individual only. 8. He takes the initiative in sharing himself with the group--his feelings as well as his thoughts--in ways which do not demand or impose but represent simply a personal sharing which students may take or leave. 9. Throughout the classroom experience, he remains alert to the expressions indicative of deep or strong feelings. 10. In his functioning as a facilitator of learning, the leader endeavors to recognize and accept his own limitations (pp. 164-166). Regarding facilitation of adult learning programs, Kidd (1973) recommended that adult educators consider the physical limiting factors affecting adults as they age by: 1. Increasing the level of stimulation (such as illumination) to compensate for declining vision; 2. Giving the adult learner time to anticipate or preview the new conditions or stimuli; 3. Allowing the adult learner to choose his own pace; 4. Giving immediate knowledge of results; 5. Eliminating or reducing environmental factors that produce discomfort, fatigue, and stress; 6. Reinforcing his successful behaviors; 7. Encouraging the individual to become increasingly self-managing (pp. 68-70). Some differences of opinion still exist, Kidd (1973) wrote, in regard to the maintenance or decline of intellectual capacity, or learning aptitude, throughout life. But there has been a dramatic reversal in the trend of interpretation. Increasingly research supported the view that adults of all ages can learn effectively, "that age has no veto power over learning." In respect to tests of vocabulary, adults showed improvement and not decline as they aged. In giving the same test taken earlier to adults a decade or so later, the individuals usually registered a better performance when older. This seemed to be true for individuals of limited as well as of excellent intellectual ability. The amount of schooling modified considerably the performance in such tests. Indeed, a critical factor in many tests of ability seemed to be the amount of practice of the particular task. When people "keep in training" in intellectual as well as physical tasks, their capacity was maintained (p.91). Accepting that many older learners students have suffered some loss in confidence, Kidd (1973) noted that many adult education programs plan for reinforcement of the learner by helping him understand why "he feels less confident, to realize that he can achieve by helping him relax and reduce tension, and by helping him improve in his study skills" (Kidd, 1973, p. 99). Goodwin Watson (1961) summarized his own "guidelines for the facilitation of adult learning": 1. Behavior which is rewarded--from the learner's point of view--is more likely to recur. 2. Sheer repetition without reward is a poor way to learn. 3. Threat and punishment have variable effects upon learning, but they can and do commonly produce avoidance behavior--in which the reward is the diminution of punishment possibilities. 4. How "ready" we are to learn something new is contingent upon the confluence of diverse--and changing--factors, some of which include: a. adequate existing experience to permit the new to be learned (we can learn only in relation to what we already know); b. adequate significance and relevance for the learner to engage in learning activity (we learn only what is appropriate to our purposes); c. freedom from discouragement, the expectation of failure, or threats to physical, emotional or intellectual well-being. 5. Whatever is to be learned will remain unlearnable if we believe that we cannot learn it or if we perceive it as irrelevant or if the learning situation is perceived as threatening. 6. Novelty (per 4 and 5 above) is generally rewarding. 7. We learn best that which we participate in selecting and planning ourselves. 8. Genuine participation (as compared with feigned participation intended to avoid punishment) intensifies motivation, flexibility, and rate of learning. 9. An autocratic atmosphere (produced by a dominating teacher who controls direction via intricate punishments) produces in learners apathetic conformity, various--and frequently devious- kinds of defiance, scapegoating (venting hostility generated by the repressive atmosphere on colleagues), or escape...An autocratic atmosphere also produces increasing dependence upon the authority, with consequent obsequiousness, anxiety, shyness, and acquiescence. 10. "Closed" authoritarian environments (such as are characteristic of most conventional schools and classrooms) condemn most learners to continuing criticism, sarcasm, discouragement, and failure so that self-confidence, aspiration (for anything but escape), and a healthy self-concept are destroyed. 11. The best time to learn anything is when whatever is to be learned is immediately useful to us. 12. An "open" non-authoritarian atmosphere can, then, be seen as conducive to learner initiative and creativity, encouraging the learning of attitudes of self-confidence, originality, self-reliance, enterprise, and independence. All of which is equivalent to learning how to learn (pp. 21-22). Houle (1972) proposed the facilitation of an adult educational program be founded upon his seven assumptions which supporting the principles of andragogy as defined by Knowles (1970). They were: 1. Any episode of learning occurs in a specific situation and is profoundly influenced by that fact. 2. The analysis or planning of educational activities must be based on the realities of human experience and upon their change. 3. Education is a practical art (like architecture) which draws on many theoretical disciplines in the humanities, the social and biological sciences. 4. Education is a cooperative rather than an operative art. A cooperative art works in a facilitative way by guiding and directing a natural entity or process. The farmer, physician, and educator are three classic examples of cooperative artists. 5. The planning or analysis of an educational activity is undertaken in terms of some period which the mind abstracts for analytical purposes from the complicated reality. 6. The planning or analysis of an educational activity may be undertaken by an educator, learner, an independent analyst, or some combination of the three. 7. Any design of education can best be understood as a complex of interacting elements, not as a sequence of events (pp. 32-39). Tough's (1979) was fascinated with the self-initiated learning projects of adult learners. He focused on the "helping role" of the facilitator or resource person. His investigations produced a fairly consistent composite picture of the ideal facilitator: 1. He is warm and loving, accepts and cares about his learners,and takes their work seriously. 2. He is confident the learner can and will plan and arrange for his own learning. 3. He views his interaction with the learner as a dialogue, an encounter in which he listens as well as talks. 4. He helps because he has affection and concern for the learner. He is open in a positive way, and expects to gain as much as he gives. 5. The ideal helper is an open and growing person, not a closed, negative, static, defensive,fearful, or suspicious sort of person. He tends to be spontaneous and authentic, and to feel free to behave as a unique person rather than in some stereotyped way (pp. 181-183). This facilitative approach, Gessner (1956) wrote, "is one of the chief distinctions found between pedagogical and andragogical education. In an adult class the student's experience counts for as much as the teacher's knowledge. Both are exchangeable. In some of the best adult classes it is sometimes difficult to discover who is learning the most, the teacher or the students. This two-way learning is also reflected in the management of adult-education enterprises. Shared learning is duplicated by shared authority. In conventional education the pupils adapt themselves to the curriculum offered, but in adult education, the pupils aid in formulating the curricula. Under democratic conditions authority is of the group. This is not an easy lesson to learn, but until it is learned democracy cannot succeed" (p. 166). One important factor in the communication process between learner and facilitator is how reliable the learner feels the facilitator is. If there is disbelief the audience may not respond. In one celebrated presentation in "Is Anybody Listening", Whyte (1952) warned business men that millions of dollars spent in providing information to their employees would all be wasted unless the employees had some trust, otherwise the words would fade away unheard and unread. One of the most alarming aspects of the many confrontations at universities involving students, faculty, and administration was the lack of trust, which endangered or impeded many attempts to bring about acceptable solutions. When working with adults, Whiting (1988) listed the following considerations the adult education facilitator: (1) define the course goals and objectives clearly; (2) include an appropriate amount of material, avoiding too much or too little; (3) schedule the class lessons to include time for questions, participation, and enjoyment; (4) limit the number of facts, figures, or points presented at one time; (5) provide an adequate amount of time for discussions; (6) design the scope of the course with the learners in mind; (7) limit the student preparation time required prior to class; (8) smile, nod, and use positive reinforcement to encourage students; and (9) use open-ended remarks and comments to stimulate more discussion. The author cited the following specific theories of adult development to defend her position: Maslow's hierarchy of needs; Rogers' fully functioning person; Kohlberg's stages of moral development; Nelson's steps in becoming self-directed; Erikson's stages of psychological development; Levinson's life structure; Loevinger's stages of ego development; and Piaget's developmental stages. In facilitating adult learning, Brookfield (1988) discussed the general nature of adult learning and six principles of effective practice for facilitative learning: (1) voluntary participation; (2) mutual respect; (3) collaborative spirit; (4) action and reflection; (5) critical reflection; and (6) self-direction. Between 1969 and 1984, the number of adults participating in educational programs increased 79 percent and the number of adult education activities doubled. Imel (1988) described the following facts which should be considered when developing instructional programs for adult learners: (1) individuals can learn throughout their lives; (2) adult life cycles influence learning; (3) adults learn what they consider important; (4) adults are often time-conscious learners; (5) what is important varies among adults, and adults generally (but not always) wish to be treated as such: and (6) biological changes may affect learning. Creating a learning environment that meets the needs of adult learners is a key element of successful adult education programs. Some strategies for accomplishing this are as follows: (1) establish adult-to-adult rapport; (2) create a participatory environment, facilitate adult independence; (3) and provide for individual differences. Although many adult learning activities do not require formal evaluation procedures, adult learners need to learn how to identify and evaluate their own resources, abilities, and knowledge realistically. When formal evaluation is required, adult students are best evaluated by using a collaborative approach. Recommended collaborative approaches include group decision making, learning contracts, and grading contracts. As the new information age approaches, teaching adults more effectively is a concern common to business, industry, professionals, and educators. Wendell (1988) examined research dealing with effective teaching and found that six functions can be identified and followed as steps in the instruction of adults: (1) review of previous learning and skills; (2) initial presentation of material through an overview; (3) guided practice; (4) corrective feedback from the instructor; (5) independent work by the students; and (6) frequent review of material. These six teaching functions serve as organizers for planning and conducting continuing education for adults. The sequence is easily applied to adult needs and provides opportunities for more positive self-development through skill demonstration. At each step, adults are reinforced with the successful accomplishment of tasks, leading to good feelings about learning and reinforcing motivation to learn. Kidd (1973) proposed the following ten commandments for the adult educator/facilitator to consider in interactions with adult learners. TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR EDUCATORS 1. Thou shalt never try to make another human being exactly like thyself; one is enough. 2. Thou shalt never judge a person's need, or refuse your consideration, because of the trouble he causes. 3. Thou shalt not blame heredity nor the environment in general; people can surmount their environments. 4. Thou shalt never give a person up as hopeless or cast him out. 5. Thou shalt try to help everyone become, on the one hand, sensitive and compassionate, and also tough-minded. 6. Thou shalt not steal from any person his rightful responsibility for determining his own conduct and the consequences thereof. 7. Thou shalt honor anyone engaged in the pursuit of learning and serve well and extend the discipline of knowledge and skill about learning which is our common heritage. 8. Thou shalt have no universal remedies or expect miracles. 9. Thou shalt cherish a sense of humor which may save you from becoming shocked, depressed, or complacent. 10. Thou shalt remember the sacredness and dignity of thy calling and, at the same time, "thou shalt not take thyself too damned seriously" (Kidd, 1973, p. 306-307) Knowles (1970) summarized his beliefs regarding the psychology of adult learning, or andragogy, by stating the learning process involved the following phases in both levels of application (teaching and learning): 1. Establishment of a climate conducive to adult learning. 2. Creation of an organizational structure for participative planning. 3. The diagnosis of needs for the adult learner. 4. The formulation of directions of adult learning (objectives). 5. The development of a design of activities. 6. The operation of the activities. 7. The re-diagnosis of needs for learning (evaluation). (p.54). Corey (1963) wrote that most great teachers have associated learning with "light." Illumination, opening up the dark patches, these were the constant themes for Bishop Gruntvig, found of the Danish folk high schools. "I can always tell a good teacher," Dr. M.M. Coady once said. "All I have to do is to speak to him of some transforming idea and then watch him light up just as an electric bulb does when the current is connected."