Let us first understand what the basic difference between a child’s brain and an Adult’s brain is – not from a neurological perspective but an anthropological perspective. A child’s brain does not have enough information to gauge what more one wants to learn or know. An adult brain already has neural pathways and information which guide them to decide which topics are worth their time and which ones are not.
Hold that idea of difference of both brains for a moment and tell me where do we find a child’s brain in today’s day and time? Learning for people is getting harder and teaching for educators is also getting harder by the day. What we need now is a fresh view of the learning process. One where educators can shed their identity and let the learning journey owned by the learner. This is the easy part. It gets difficult when the teacher is also needed to still remain the owner of the learning process.
This is where the teachers’ need to understand the basic principles of andragogy comes in. I don’t think it is talked about enough even though the demand for creating learning organization is through the roof, very few organizations is investing in developing trainers and educators who truly understand what it means for them to have an adult learn.
With my experience of training and coaching, I have come to develop a simplified model of learning that works very well. It is a five-step process.
Create awareness and curiosity -> Get a baseline of expectations and knowledge -> Come prepared with philosophy of the subject at hand -> Invite people to co create the ideas together -> Build a learning community and leave them to lead themselves through the rest of the journey
If it sounds overtly simple, that is happening because it actually is very simple. However, implementing it well would be tough. Just like most simple things, the implementation of simple things is never easy.
The basis of my method lies in concepts derived from Bloom’s taxonomy – six levels of thinking and principles of Andragogy. I have attached both the resources here for your further reference.
Alternatively, for a quicker understanding, feel free to reach out. If I get 50+ requests, I would expand on both academic concepts in my coming articles.