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How Adults Learn

**This content is excerpted from the Guerilla Manual for Adult College Students. To learn more about the book or author visit AdultStudents.com .

"I tend to get away from those (classes) that do strict lecture. I have to have some hands-on. I learn by hands-on."
Joyce M, 36, earned her Associate's degree in June 1998 and eventually earned a Master's. She was head of her community college Honor Society and had a 3.8 GPA.

We're different from the kids

The basic reason we learn differently than younger students is because we are so different from them in so many ways. We've lived longer, and have many more experiences. As we've aged we've acquired more and more responsibilities - a job, perhaps a spouse or partner, maybe some kids, a few bills to be paid and so forth. And with these added responsibilities has come the curse of the last half of the 20th century and the first half of the 21st: less and less time to attend to more and more things that need to be done. So we want to use our time more efficiently.

And overlaying all of these differences is one that is probably more important: we expect to be treated as adults. And that is a concept that many educational systems are still wrestling with in one way or another.

The way the kids learn

Until the 1930s or so there was only one model used to create curricula, teaching practices and schools. It was the one that was refined from about the 7th to the 12th centuries in the monastic schools of Europe. This model was called pedagogy, from the early Greek words meaning child and leading - literally teaching children.

It pictured the mind as a blank slate or an empty container, one that needed to be filled with knowledge about the world and its many aspects. This learning system depended on fact-filled lectures, quizzes, assigned readings, drills, tests, rote memorization and the other techniques you no doubt recall from your days in grammar school and high school.

Although this technique works reasonably well for younger students, even with them it has some shortcomings. And it doesn't work at all well for adults.

"We had to write our own plays and perform them in class. That was my favorite kind. It was all hands-on activities."
Deanne L. started college in 1977, finished her Bachelor's in the Fall of 1998 and went on for her Master's.

How we adults learn

A new theory of learning developed quickly once the ball got rolling, and by the mid-1960s it had even been given a name: Andragogy, a parallel word to pedagogy and based on the Greek word for man or adult. By the 1970s it was clear to most educators that adults did learn differently from younger students, and had, in fact, been learning differently for a very, very long time, even though the formal educational institutions had never recognized these differences.

"There was more interaction in these classes. It was as if they welcomed debate, they welcomed each student's interpretation, they left room for growth."
Kathleen C. started college in 1971. She was 56 when she earned her Bachelor's degree.

What this means to you as an adult college student

In the last fifty years or so educators have learned a great deal about how adults learn and how that learning differs from the way young students learn. While some colleges still have not gotten the word, most schools and teachers have incorporated at least some of the theory into the way they offer knowledge to adults. Although you will not see all of these characteristics in every class or every school, you should notice at least some of the basics of andragogical theory at work when you go back to school.

Some of the things you might see include:

• An adult-oriented classroom will usually have the learners and the teacher arranged in a circle, or seated around a small collection of tables. Everyone is equal in this space - there is no status differentiation.

The exception to this will probably be classrooms that depend heavily on computers and computer projectors. Many modern classrooms give each student a computer, and the teacher has one as well, with hers driving an overhead projector. These classrooms will probably look a lot like the ones you are familiar with, with the students arranged in rows and the teacher in front of the room.

• A friendly, relaxed atmosphere. Most educators agree that the behavior of the teacher is the single most influential characteristic of the adult learning process. These days, most teachers of adults take the time to get to know their students' names and learn something about them and their individual circumstances. This informal, almost casual environment is made to put everyone at ease.
• Use of more "hands-on" learning techniques. Because adults have much more experience than younger students, the way they prefer to learn is much different. Most adults do not like the lecture technique, preferring instead to be more actively involved. Consequently, many adult classes tend to use techniques like role-playing, group discussions, experiments, skill-practice exercises, small seminar and group work activities, team projects and the like. Lectures are still used, but they tend to be much more give and take than the ones you remember from high school, and usually resemble more a group of friends trading knowledge and ideas back and forth.
• Emphasis on practical applications. This is also a reflection of adults' greater experience. Teachers of adults often tie the topic being discussed to a real-life situation where it can be immediately applied. Writing classes, as one example, often have adult students actually write letters of complaint to a retailer they are dissatisfied with, or create a job application letter and resume to send to a potential employer. In many cases these are actually mailed.
• The teacher-learner relationship is not based on a hierarchy. Most adults, regardless of their actual learning abilities, are genuinely afraid of returning to school, as noted in an earlier chapter. Schools dealing with adults realize this, and teachers often go to considerable lengths to make the students feel comfortable. A major emphasis is placed on presenting the teacher as a peer, an equal who just happens to have some special knowledge to share. The learning environment often resembles getting information from a friend or mentor.

If you find yourself in a class with a preponderance of adults but the teacher is obviously not using any of the techniques noted above, you may want to ask why. There may be some very good reasons. Or it may be that the instructor is just not aware of the differences in learning styles between adults and younger students.

"What I loved about it was that you had a chance to become directly involved in the inner workings of your educational program. It was nice, because you could customize it in a way."
Dave P, commenting on his experience in his non-residential college degree program.

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