Teaching Adults

362 Pages·2010·5.61 MB·English

by  Alan Rogers

Teaching Adults
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Fourth Edition
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“Alan Rogers’ Teaching Adultshas established itself as perhaps the a
leading textbook in the field for both academics and for practitioners. c
The merits of the book lie in the clarity of its exposition and in its h
combination of theoretical discussion and practical advice… i
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I recommend it wholeheartedly.”
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PROFESSORW. JOHNMORGAN

UNESCO CHAIROFTHEPOLITICALECONOMYOFEDUCATION, UNIVERSITYOFNOTTINGHAM, UK A
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This bestselling book will help anyone who is engaged in teaching adults.
Whether you are working with groups or individuals, in a formal or informal u
setting, face-to-face or through blended learning, it will help you to develop a l
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relationship with your student learners while increasing your understanding of s
yourself as a teacher.
The authors examine different aspects of teaching including: Teaching Adults
• What is meant by adult learning and what are the main characteristics of F
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adult learners?
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• What is the nature of learning and how does theory relate to practice? r
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• How do teachers plan learning, set goals and objectives and most h

importantly how does a teacher know when learning has taken place? E
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Each chapter contains a series of activities to help you relate what you are t
io ALAN ROGERS & NAOMI HORROCKS
reading to your own experiences.
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Key features of the new edition include:
Fourth Edition
• New research on unconscious and conscious learning
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• Coverage of adult learning in formal and non-formal education programmes
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• Fully updated and extended activities
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• Opportunity for teachers to pause and reflect on their role as teachers
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This popular book is valuable reading for experienced teachers who wish to R
reflect on and improve their practice. It is also useful reading for those who are S
new to teaching and workplace trainers. &

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Alan Rogersholds a Special Professorship in Adult Education in the School of
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Education at the University of Nottingham and an Honorary Professorial
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Fellowship in the University of East Anglia, UK. He engages in research,
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evaluation and training programmes overseas.
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Naomi Horrocksis a freelance consultant in the further and higher education C
sector, working for both national and K
regional agencies on teacher education, S
research and evaluation. She is a Visiting
Fellow in the School of Lifelong Learning
at UEA, UK.
Cover design Hybert Design (cid:129)www.hybertdesign.com
www.openup.co.uk
BIBLIOGRAPHY i
Teaching Adults
Fourth Edition
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ii TEACHING ADULTS
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BIBLIOGRAPHY iii
Teaching Adults
Fourth Edition
Alan Rogers
Naomi Horrocks
Open University Press
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Open University Press
McGraw-Hill Education
McGraw-Hill House
Shoppenhangers Road
Maidenhead
Berkshire
England
SL6 2QL
email: [email protected]
world wide web: www.openup.co.uk
and Two Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10121-2289, USA
First published 1986
Reprinted 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994
Second edition 1996
Reprinted 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001
Third edition 2002
Reprinted 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007 (twice)
First published in this fourth edition 2010
Copyright © Alan Rogers and Naomi Horrocks 2010
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the
purposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by
any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence from the
Copyright Licensing Agency Limited. Details of such licences (for
reprographic reproduction) may be obtained from the Copyright
Licensing Agency Ltd of Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London, EC1N 8TS.
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
ISBN-13: 978-0-33-523539-1
ISBN-10: 0-33-523539-5
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
CIP data applied for
Typeset by Graphicraft Limited, Hong Kong
Printed in the UK by Bell and Bain Ltd., Glasgow
Fictitious names of companies, products, people, characters and/or data
that may be used herein (in case studies or in examples) are not intended
to represent any real individual, company, product or event.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY v
Contents
Foreword viii
Before you start xi
1 Teaching adults today – the context 1
From certainty to uncertainty 1
From defi cit to diversity and back again 1
From (adult) education to (lifelong) learning 5
Exploring the context of your teaching 10
Three main parties 13
Further reading 15
Appendix: Taxonomy 16
2 A contract to learn 17
Adult participation is voluntary and purposeful 17
A contract to learn 19
Making and interpreting the contract 24
Writing a contract of learning 35
Further reading 37
3 Perceptions of adult education 38
The search for understanding: adult education 38
Adult 44
Education 50
Adult education 60
Further reading 66
4 Adult students 67
Student profi les 67
Lifespan studies 70
General characteristics of adult student learners 79
Implications for the teacher of adults 92
Further reading 93
5 The nature of learning 95
Learning and change 96
Learner-based theories 99
Context-based theories 113
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vi TEACHING ADULTS
Knowledge-based theories 117
Process-based theories 119
Diversity of ways of learning 127
Further reading 128
6 From learning to teaching 129
Learning and life 129
Learning episodes 133
Two different kinds of learning 138
The uniqueness of adult learning 144
From learning to teaching 147
Further reading 155
Pause for thought 156
7 Aims, goals and objectives 158
Aims, goals and objectives in adult learning programmes 158
Levels of goals 163
Setting the goals 170
Widening the goals 180
Further reading 185
8 The adult learning group 186
The importance of groups in adult learning programmes 186
The nature of groups 188
Groups in adult education 195
Forming the group 200
The teacher and the group 201
Facing some problems in an adult learning group 205
Further reading 214
9 Roles and the teacher 215
Roles in adult learning groups 215
The roles of the teacher of adults 219
Resistance to change 231
Further reading 235
10 Teaching: content and methods 236
Curriculum 236
The relationship between content and methods 241
Content 243
Methods 252
Teaching – choosing content and methods 258
Further reading 262
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CONTENTS vii
Pause for more thought 263
11 Blocks to learning 264
Identifying the problem 264
Pre-existing knowledge 268
Self-perception factors 272
Some sources of emotional diffi culty 277
Learning attitudes 281
Further reading 283
12 Evaluation 284
The importance of evaluation 285
Evaluate what? 293
How to evaluate 299
Practices 305
Teacher self-evaluation 306
The wider signifi cance of evaluation 306
Further reading 307
13 Participation 308
Participation as involvement in the process
(active learning) 308
Participation as increasing control over the process 314
Participation as presence in teaching–learning
programmes 319
The invisible teacher of adults 322
Further reading 323
Conclusion 324
Bibliography 327
Author index 340
Subject index 343
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VIII TEACHING ADULTS
Foreword: Using the Map for
the Road Ahead
Imagine that you are on a mountain side. The path behind and ahead of
you changes all the time, sometimes going up steeply, sometimes going
down, sometimes more gently undulating. The area is combed with
paths, all occupied by individuals and groups of climbers. You have in
your hand a map but it is a bit unreliable, for it was drawn by people
who passed along this path some time before and the paths keep chang-
ing as more and more people use them. Then your path and the path of
some others coincide; for the next section of the road, some of the
other walkers coalesce into a group and you meet up with them and
for a short time travel together, exchanging experiences and insights.
Then their path and yours separate and the group disperses, all along
different tracks.
That is teaching adults. For a relatively short time, you have met up with
one or a group of adults, and for a time you will travel together, sharing
insights and experiences. And this book is something of a map. Reading
and using this book is only a part of your journey; there were journeys
for you before and there will be journeys afterwards. But for a time you
and your student learners can try to follow the map; then you will
separate, though some may stay within hailing distance for a time.
The aim of this book is to help you in the relationships within the
learning group. Learning to teach adults is a matter of increasing your
understanding not only of your subject but of yourself and of the learn-
ing group and in this way to improve your practices. This book will help
you to explore (again) your attitudes towards the student learners in your
group.
Looked at in this way, you can see that you do not need to motivate
the participants in your travelling group to walk the walk – i.e. to learn;
indeed, they do not need to learn how to learn for they are already learning
all the time with enthusiasm and commitment, mostly through informal
learning. But much of this learning will be unconscious, resulting in tacit
funds of knowledge and skills, and even when they are conscious of it, as
in a new job with its ‘I’m on a steep learning curve’, they may not regard
that as ‘learning’. For them, infl uenced by what has been called ‘the empire
of education’, ‘learning’ may be seen as the same as ‘being taught’.
But your student learners may well need to learn how to study (which
is only one form of learning). And they may well need to be motivated to
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FOREWORD ix
learn what you wish them to learn. For in today’s world, increasingly in
adult education, there are adult student learners who do not wish to be
there (we heard very recently of a large police training programme where
the majority had been ‘required’ to be there when they wished to be back
in their own locations – which made hard work for the training team!).
The argument of this book is that if we can identify and understand
something of this informal learning and use it in our teaching of adults,
if we can help the participants to become more conscious of their exist-
ing funds of knowledge and skills and draw on them, then our task of
helping adults to learn something will become more effective. This is
not, of course, easy; it will be much easier for us to regard the group as a
whole as uniformly ignorant and needing our standardised inputs. That
will make us feel good, superior, needed. But it is not teaching adults,
people who are our equals; this is not horizontal but vertical learning. So
that part of our journey at this stage is to re-examine ourselves, our attitudes
towards the people we meet and work with for a time, our commitment
to them, the confi dence we bring to the task.
And then we need to re-examine our adult students. They too are in
the middle of a journey; they too each have a past journey and will have
their own future journeys, sometimes together, sometimes apart. Each of
them brings his or her own experiences, their own insights and concerns,
which they need to contribute to the common task. They, like us, will
have a goal, the next staging post or milestone of their journey. What
they learn while with us – both what they learn formally and what they
learn informally through the programme – will literally ‘inform’ their
future journeys.
And this means that, whatever may be the formal circumstances in
your adult learning context, the measures of success you choose for your
group will be your own measures; they do not need to be only the formal
assessments of the programme. And each of the participants will have
their own intentions, their own different measures of success. Passing
the examination or test (if there is one) and obtaining the certifi cate may
well be important for some members of the group; but for others, the
chief gain may well be ‘walking tall’, increased curiosity about the way
ahead, increased confi dence to travel on – though for the one or two
over-confi dent, it may perhaps be a reining in of expectations through
wider horizons and better perspectives of the risks in front of them. This
book provides an opportunity for you to look again at the goal(s) you have
set before yourself as well as the route to get there; and also to look at the
paths and destinations the student learners have set before themselves.
Reading a map is not like reading a book. A map is consulted from
time to time; it is explored, not in sequence. It is used again and again.
So that reaching the end of this book will not be the end even of one
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