Learning Objectives
- [4]Formulate and articulate a personal philosophy of adult education informed by principles and theories of adult learning.
- [5]Incorporate a personal philosophy of learning in the design of instructional strategies for teaching in a variety of learning environments.
- [6]Explore, experience, and analyze various instructional strategies and their relationship to individual differences and experiential learning.
- [7]Compare and contrast the characteristics of instructor-centered versus learner-centered and subject-centered teaching and their effectiveness in promoting active learning, collaborative learning, self-direction, and reflection by students.
- [8]Demonstrate the importance of practice, experience, and critical reflection for both learners and teachers for personal and professional development.
Key Takeaways
- Understanding that learning styles are not necessarily relevant in teaching and learning.
- Explore UDL and the 5 Cs of Teaching and Learning in order to draw conclusions on how adults learn.
- Learn how to implement assessment activities geared towards adult learners.
- Construct a personal philosophy of learning by examining others’ philosophies.
- Identify and formulate a rationale for teaching which includes audience and course research.
Were you an auditory learner or visual learner? Do you need to learn by doing? By touch?
What if someone told you that all of that is a myth? What if having this assumption actually slowed your learning?
Distinguishing or categorizing your learning can sometimes hinder your ability to process in different ways. For example, if you only consider yourself a kinetic learner, you may find difficulty in learning by watching. It might be more suitable to consider it a “preferred” learning style rather than “your only” learning style.
Duncan Geere wrote an interesting article, Busting the ‘Neuromyths’ About How We Learn’, which describes the myth of learning styles and other ‘Neuromyths’ about how we learn. Below you will find a list of some of the myths described in the article.
- Humans use only 10% of their brains – there is evidence that shows humans use almost 100% of your brain every day through dormant and active cycles of neurons.
- Left-Brain/Right-Brain – while there was some evidence of networks of neurons being stronger on the left or right, however, the “Our data [2013 study of MRI brain images] are not consistent with a whole-brain phenotype of greater ‘left-brained’ or greater ‘right-brained’ network strength across individuals” (Geere, 2016).
- Preschool programs have an enormous effect on children’s cognitive development – meta-studies show that by the age of eight it is not evident which children had preschool and which did not.
- Importance of play – there has not been any evidence that distinctly supports that pretend play is uniquely important in development but could be possible that play is only one of many routes to development.
- “Digital Natives” (a ti