The Adult Educator Blog. Is the Internet/Web 2.0 turning adult learning on its head?
The answer is simple, No. The Internet is not ravaging adult learning theory, on the contrary, it is confirming what we already knew. Let's take Marie Wallace's points and see how they stack up against todays Web 2.0 and on-demand learning. Adults are self-directed: What more self -direction than on-demand learning where adults can gather their own materials to meet their learning needs? And not only they are self directed towards their gathering of learning, now they are sharing that learning via wikis and blogs. Take responsibility for their learning experiences: Again here, the fact that someone takes the initiative to go to the web search for appropriate learning experiences and engage in them proves this point.
Learn readily from their peers: Need I say anything here in this age of wikis, blogs, and messaging? The Science Behind Adult Learning. 'Tis the season of professional development for many of us who work in schools.
While PD can be meaningful, sometimes the experience feels like we were the unwilling recipients of an unpleasant procedure -- we were professionally developed; our descriptions employ the same tone, syntax, and non-verbal language as when describing a colonoscopy. Let me digress for a moment. For many years, I've been trying to learn to bake bread. At first, I roughly followed a recipe, using whatever stale ingredients I had in the cupboard. The results were disastrous -- the yeast didn't foam, the bread didn't rise, the center was gooey, and the outside rock hard. This was what I mulled over as I sat through three days of excruciating professional development because the science behind the PD I was subjected to was all wrong.
In this day and age, there is so much information available about how adults learn that I'm shocked that professional development can still feel like a colonoscopy. . #1. . #2. . #3. . #4. 5 Tips on Lifelong Learning & the Adult Brain. Learning & the Brain is a conference that gets marked on my calendar annually because I always return home having either been exposed to new information, or with a new perspective on an old topic.
Last month’s conference in Cambridge, MA, themed Using Emotions Research to Enhance Learning & Achievement, was no exception. As with previous conferences, in addition to the many keynote sessions, I focused on the adult learning strand, since so much of my time is spent providing professional development for, and collaborating with adults. Here are five conference cues as they relate to education. Aaron Nelson stated that our memory starts to decline between ages twenty-five and thirty, or to phrase it a bit more positively, Sam Wang says our memory peaks around age thirty.
Elkhonon Goldberg, at last April’s conference, stated that “as one ages, the domain of the novel shrinks, and the domain of what is known grows”. John Ratey said it in his talk. Resources. Browse through this directory of my recommended blog posts and tutorials to help you master social business and issues related to social learning.
Find all of my published content in the publications list. Books The New Social Learning: A Guide to Transforming Your Organization Through Social Media with Tony Bingham, forward by Daniel H. Pink. Berrett-Koehler/ASTD, September 2010. Creating a Learning Culture: Strategy, Technology, and Practice (with Jim Clawson, forward by Douglas K. Introductions Curiosity comes from understanding enough about a field to want to learn more yourself. Informal Learning Even though most of what is written about learning and education are about formal (organized, scheduled, and directed) learning, people learn far more through informal means. Experiential Learning We take in information through our senses, but we ultimately learn by doing, and then reflecting on the experiences that we’ve had. [Image: flickr user Ibrahim Iujaz]