Wes Akers

Before I read the weekly texts, I thought my main interest would lie in teaching strategies for adult learners.  However, while I read, I generated a list of topics or ideas that stood out to me and my interests are broader than I initially thought.

• Comparing adult and child learners
• Characteristics of adult learners
• Practical strategies for instruction – specific to each learning theory
• Instruction based on the five basic principles of adult learning
• Pros and cons of different adult learning theories

With my past middle school teaching experience, I feel pretty confident in my understanding of adolescent learners.  I, however, would like to learn how adolescent students’ learning styles evolve as they progress into adulthood.  A few questions came to mind.

• Are there similarities in addition to differences between child and adult learners?
• Do the differences play a larger factor in motivation and engagement?

By comparing adult and child learners, I hope I will also discover more specific characteristics of adult learners.  To me, it seems pretty basic and necessary to learn the characteristics of adult learners.  Without a clear understanding of adult learner characteristics, I do not think I could even start to develop meaningful curriculum.  A few more questions arose related to my understanding of the text.

• How do I make instruction meaningful and purposeful to adult learners so they find it immediately useful?
• How do adult learners validate information based on their beliefs and ideas?
• What strategies can I use to facilitate adult learners’ shift away from a fixed mindset?

With a clear understanding of adult learner characteristics and learning styles, I would feel a little more confident planning instruction, but I would get stuck in determining the best teaching strategies to get optimal engagement.  Even after reading and thinking, I still feel this is my greatest interest because my passion lies in curriculum development.  I really love learning about new teaching strategies I can use in my classroom.  Also, it will be interesting to compare specific instructional strategies for adult and adolescent learners.  During our professional development at ACMS, I often feel like I am sitting through “kid stuff.”  My goal is to start leading PD at my school or in my district and I want teachers to be engaged in the content I’m presenting.  Furthermore, I would like to start training teacher candidates or first year teachers.  My mentors have been some of the most influential people in my career and I do not see quality mentorship networks for first year teachers in Adams 14 SD.  I believe a quality mentorship program in our district will help with our problem of retaining teachers.  With these thoughts, I started to consider more questions.

• How are instructional strategies different for adults compared to adolescents?
• How do I value adult learners’ experience while asking them to a shift in their thinking or doing, especially adult learners who use their experience as a safety blanket?

The article from San Diego City College presented instruction based on the five basic principles of adult learning.  I found this part of text particularly engaging because I thought it gave me a good understanding of the framework I would use to develop curriculum.  I also liked how this section starts to describe some specific instructional strategies, but I would like to investigate further.

In addition to comparing adult and child learners, I liked the way one of the texts compared the learning styles, specifically identifying the pros and cons of each style.  I feel identifying pros and cons of learning styles will allow me to better figure out the types of learning I feel more and/or less confident in using with learners.  I know it is important to understand the learning style that is the best for students, but I also think it is necessary for the teacher to work within a framework they find most manageable.  Researching pros and cons will allow me to begin determining a framework that is best for me.