FACILITATING

ADULT LEARNING
Objectives:
•Reflect critically on your own practice and
facilitate critical reflections in the facilitation of
adult learning.
•Make appropriate decisions regarding the
facilitation of adult learning based on your
knowledge of issues related to distributed
learning.
•Identify factors that affect how
adults learn and the environments
that are conducive to learning.
•Explore ethical issues in adult
education and in facilitating adult
learning.
 Adult Learners: How to facilitate learnings to
them?
Malcolm Knowles (1990) refers to the theory and
practice of adult education as ;

Andragogy – an adult-centered, problem

posing approach to learning;
Pedagogy – is child-centered, teacher-directed
education
Activity: Adult and Young Learner
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Differences Between Children and

Adult Learners
Children Adult

Rely on others to decide Decide for themselves

what is important to be what is important to be
learned learned
Accept the information Need to validate the
being presented at face information based on own
value beliefs/experiences
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Children Adult
Expect what they are Expect what they are
learning to be useful in learning to be immediately
their long-term future useful

Have little or no experience Have much past

upon which to draw - clean experiences to draw from -
slates may have fixed viewpoints
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Children Adult

Little ability to serve as a Significant ability to serve

knowledgeable resource to as a knowledgeable

teacher or fellow resource to trainer and
classmates fellow learners
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Principles of Learning
Occurs inside the learner and
activated by the learner

Involves discovery of personal

meaning and relevance of ideas

Learning No one directly teaches anyone

is highly anything of significance
personal
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Principles of Learning
Evolutionary more
than revolutionary

Both emotional and

Learning intellectual
involves
multi- Consequence of
dimensional learner’s experiences
processes
Interdependent more
than independent
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Facilitating Conditions

Diversity is Okay to
valued make
mistakes
Ambiguity is
tolerated

Ideas canbe
challenged
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Facilitating Conditions
Discovery of
personal
meaning of
ideas is
facilitated Uniquely
personal and
subjective
nature of
learning is
Evaluation emphasized
by self and
others is
facilitated
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Facilitating Conditions

People feel
respected and
accepted

People are
engaged

People are
encouraged to
trust self and
other resources
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Adult Learning Approach and

Methodology

Holistic

Experiential

Reflective
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The Adult Learning Approach and

Methodology
• HOLISTIC – gives equal importance to every aspect of
learning, from ability to understand, through his emotions,
and finally to how he decides and acts on what he has
learned
• EXPERIENTIAL – makes use of real-life situations and
the participants’ experience as point of departure
• REFLECTIVE – enables him to look at the experience from
a distance, identify his reactions to it and determine
alternative courses of action
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Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle

Concrete
Experience
(Doing Something)

Active Reflective
Experimentation Observation
(Reflecting)
(Action Planning)

Abstract
Conceptualization
(Theorizing)
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Experiential Learning

A process that is characterized by constructed

events that can lead to reflection on the
meaning of the experience, and subsequent
personal, group, and/or organizational change
 16

Key Elements
Involves an experience that is meaningful to the
learner, one that can potentially facilitate change in
knowledge , attitude or skill

Accompanied by critical thought and reflection

about the experience and how it affects previous
experience and learning

Provides opportunity for learner to decide

(consciously or unconsciously) to undertake some
kind of action
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Differences Between Classroom and

Experiential Learning

CLASSROOM EXPERIENTIAL
Learning Expert: Teachers Learners, Resource
Resource Books Persons, Facilitators
Focus of Acquiring Solving problems,
Learning knowledge acquiring efficacy
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CLASSROOM EXPERIENTIAL

Teacher-Student
Facilitator-Learner
Relationship Superior-Subordinate
Learner-Resource
Expert-Novice
 19

CLASSROOM EXPERIENTIAL

1. Teacher/ Expert
TELLS or 1.Facilitator creates
lectures learning situation
Process where learner ACTS
2. Teacher DRILLS or goes through
or practices, concrete experience
elaborates
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CLASSROOM EXPERIENTIAL

2. Learner examines results

or experiences/gets
FEEDBACK
Process 3. Teacher TESTS
3. Learner REFLECTS on
meaning, implication of
feedback
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CLASSROOM EXPERIENTIAL

4. Learner makes
4. Teacher CONCLUSIONS and
Process
EVALUATES decides on appropriate
application back home
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Differences Between Teacher and

Facilitator
TEACHER FACILITATOR

Presents information Guides discussion

Provides the right answers Provides the right questions
One-way communication Two-way communication
Gives assignments Coordinates learning activities
Dictates Objectives Melds group goals
Teacher-centered Learner-centered
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3

The Cycle of Adult or Experiential Learning

By Carmencita T. Abella, 1982
New Activity /
Experience

Step 4. Practical Step 1. Activity or

Application Experience

Step 3. Abstraction Step 2. Analysis /

or Integration Reflective Feedback
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4 A’s ACTIVITY

APPLICATION ANALYSIS

ABSTRACTION
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What are the 4As?

Activity Analysis

Abstraction Application
 26

Activity • A structured experience

• May be direct or vicarious
• “What to do” phase
• To engage the learner
• To develop a common base
for the discussion that
follows
 27

• A reflective feedback
Analysis
• A process of inquiry into
the Activity
• The “why” phase
• To look more closely at
what happened
• Systematic examination
• Experience sharing
• Learning from others
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Abstraction • Integration of Activity and

Analysis
• Theory inputs
• The “so what” phase
• To make an inferential leap to
life
• To derive generalizations
• To integrate the various
concepts in the learning
session
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Application
• A practical synthesis
• The “now what” phase
• Apply generalizations to
work
• Transfer insights to real-life
concerns
KNOWLEDGE is l i k e • Evaluate the effectiveness
paint…it does no g o o d of the session
unti l it is APPLIED
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The biggest
challenge is
to be
learner-
focused
People learn best not by
being told, but by
experiencing the
consequences of their own
thoughts and actions.
-‐Training House, New Jersey
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