What is this course all about?
Adult learning programs must be developed based on some sound principles. They must:
- Be based on Action Learning or Learning by Doing
- Be user-friendly or non-threatening
- Be user-urgent or useful immediately
- Be lifestyle enhancing or help people to live more meaningful lives
- Be based on team synergy and group dynamics
- Include assessment and evaluation
- Encourage creative/lateral thinking
- Be based on empathy between people
- Cause the change that will help graduates to go out and make a positive difference
- Emphasize interactive participation
- Contain material that reinforces universal learning practices
- Be life-relevant
- Address adult expectations
- Closely identify with the statement by Galileo, who said, “You cannot teach a person anything; you can only help him to find it within himself.”
- Identify with the statement, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for life.”
Adults are by nature conservative, cautious and usually have their own prejudices and perceptions. They are also all individuals. Consider all these traits when you plan for the Adult Learning Experience.
Here are some of the learning barriers you should consider when planning and writing your training course:
- Adults like being in control, so let them take the reins from time to time.
- Adults want to be treated like adults, and doing so enhances achievement and minimizes undesirable behavior.
- Adults like to chat, interact, listen to stories and have fun together, so let them do these things as often as possible.
- Adults want to know who is in charge, as does a trainer; you should establish that confidence with the students.
- Adults like to offer opinions and share experiences, so make ample opportunities for that.
- Adults like being treated as individuals rather than as members of a group, so be conscious of that.
- Adults like recognition, so praise their efforts and give them the opportunity to graduate.
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