思考成人学习者

While in my younger days, I concerned myself a lot with how adolescent brains learned and retained critical content, today I spend most of my time thinking about adult learners. And the good news is that, over the past 25 years, what we know about how adults master new ideas and skills has grown exponentially. I’d like to take a quick look at some of this research and how those of us who provide professional development opportunities might apply it.

The First Thing to Know: Adults Learn Differently Than Children

Malcolm牧羊犬诺尔斯（1913年 - 1997年）是一名美国教育者，旨在使用“Andragogy”一词作为成人教育的代名词。据诺克尔斯的说法，Andragogy是成人学习的艺术和科学。（这是将其区分离出来的“教育学”一词，这是指儿童的学习。）

Most cognitive scientists mark the “adult brain” as beginning at or around age 23. That means that, if you teach adults in the same manner you do, have, or would teach traditional-age students, it is highly likely that learning is不是事实上，发生。

诺尔斯在哪个六种原则上的方式，成年学习者与学龄儿童不同：

• 成年人是自我指导的学习者（自我概念）。
• 成年人积累了成为越来越丰富的学习资源的经验（经验）。
• Readiness to learn is related to social roles (readiness).
• Adults want immediate application of knowledge (problem-centered orientation).
• 成年人往往是内部动机（内在动机）。
• Adults need to know the reason or learning something (need to know) (来源).

I would like to examine each of these principles in a series of blogs over the next few weeks, taking a look at what each one means and how it might be applied to the learning opportunities that we provide. In today’s blog, I’ll look at the first two principles.

成年人是自我指导的学习者

当我们成为成年人时，我们觉得有必要断言我们的独立性。这也在学习中发挥作用。

“成长，学习者获得了更多的自我意识，并从依赖 - 典型的儿童 - 越来越多的自治。然后，在培训设置中，对成年人来说至关重要，能够做出选择in relation to the learning process” (来源).

正如我们计划专业学习机会的那样，我们必须向我们的教育工作者提供多个途径，以施加自己的独立性，并制定自己的决定什么they will learn (to the greatest extent allowed) and如何他们会学习它。显然，由于法律要求（例如，STAAR测试适度）或安全（消防训练期望）或日常工作需求（使用区域LMS），有一些主题。但除此之外，教师和管理员选择学习应该是：他们的选择。因此，单尺寸适合的人内容提供与他们无效，并且坦率地坦率地浪费了每个人的时间。

Perhaps even more importantly, in ALL learning offerings, adult learners must be given the opportunity to make choices about如何they will learn the content. That may mean that we offer the professional development as self-paced courses, as podcasts, as videos, in person and working collaboratively. While this is obviously a lot more work on the provider’s part, it is critical to having the learning actually take root and last.

The questions to ask ourselves as we plan professional development should include:

• 这是我希望教师掌握对每个人的关键吗？是否有其组成部分是可选的，也是最适合某些用户，主题领域或年级水平？
• Is this something that the educators want to learn? How do I know that?
• How many different ways can I provide the learning experiences?
• In what other ways can I provide choice during the learning? Could it be in how they work together (singly, in pairs, in small groups, jigsaw) or how they annotate their learning (presentation, notes, collaborative document, sketchnote, KWL chart)?

成年人带来了经验

The fact that adults have experience that they bring with them to new learning is important for two different reasons. One has to do with their individual identity and the other has to do with brain plasticity.

我们身份的一部分

“Compared to younger learners, adults havemore experience而且，在大多数情况下，他们聚集自己identity从这个背景“（来源). What we have already learned therefore contributes greatly to our view of ourselves. If, for example, we have experienced problems with technology in the past, that may make us believe as adults that tech doesn’t work for us and is not worth our time.

So in providing professional learning, it’s good to begin by having participants think about what they already believe about themselves with regard to the topic being studied. A form of KWL (what I already KNOW, what I WANT to learn, and then, after the learning, what I have LEARNED) can be useful for this, as can a容量矩阵。或者您可能希望在学习开始之前要求人们反思他们对主题的思想和感受。然而，您更愿意，有成年学习者对其以前的主题的经验是重要的，这是他们自我认同的一部分以及如何在这个新领域进一步学习。

成人学习者回答的问题可能包括：

• 我对此主题有什么知识或经验？我已经知道了什么？可能缺乏哪些信息？
• Are there past mistakes that I have made on this topic? How can I avoid making similar mistakes this time? What can I learn from those mistakes?

Brain Plasticity in Adult Learning

另一种方式，即成人学习者的经验会影响他们的新学习与大脑可塑性有关。

“......成年大脑具有可塑性，这意味着只要它受到刺激，就可以继续生长 - 建立新的联系;事实上，FEYLER（如威尔逊，2006年引用）具体地将可塑性定义为大脑生长的能力。但是，正如泰勒和玛丽恩（2016年）所指出的那样，可塑性Vis-in-Vis的作用更为重要，即增长;可塑性的关键作用是允许大脑根据新经验的学习随着时间的推移而改变和改变“（来源).

作为专业发展提供商，我们如何利用现有经验和可塑性之间的这种关系？根据该研究的最佳方式是为学习者提供丰富的环境，一个具有多种类型的刺激。“图片，图表，声音，嗅觉，生动的图像，故事，颜色，音乐和诗歌都是有助于创建丰富的环境的多种模式刺激的所有示例。创建丰富的环境也增加了您将以更高的学习者的先前体验方式连接的可能性“（来源).

我们如何在学校或在线学习环境中提供这一丰富的环境？科学表示，我们需要避免所谓的低频活动，例如讲座，以及利用高频活动，利用多种方式增加强大的突触连接的可能性。底线是参与。如何以各种方式呈现要学习的内容，分为小，可管理的段，并提供，以便学习者不断参与新的和不同的东西？

我们的上一个成人学习者的步骤

Obviously, all of this requires a lot of advance preparation on the professional development provider’s part. And, I admit, it can seem overwhelming. So take it in small steps.

• First, reflect on your thoughts and feelings about making these changes. What experience are you bringing to the table that may impact your learning?
• 接下来，选择学习的一个特定区域以专注于。您将首先在为您的成人学习者提供选择，或者更多地在提供更大的参与活动的活动中工作吗？不要试图同时做两者。
• Look at the content to be learned and how it can be broken down into shorter, more manageable chunks. What’s the best way to organize it?

在本系列中的下一个博客中，我们将介绍两种更多的方法，即成人学习者与我们的前大学生不同以及如何影响我们提供的专业发展。此外，如果此主题对您感兴趣，请考虑参加虚拟基础技术会议6月13日至15日。我将在学习活动中展示关于诺尔乐乐的工作，我很想让你在那里加入我。会议将提供更深入的了解知识的研究，并分享了如何将其与John Hattie对其最佳教育工作的研究相关联。所以今天注册，让我们一起学习！