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Example research essay topic: Empirical Knowledge Adult Learners - 1,756 words

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How Adults Learn (1) More and more contemporary educators adopt a new approach to the subject of adult education. This comes as a result of realization that adult education has its own unique specifics, which in its turn, suggests an application of specifically designed educational methods that are meant to help adult in reaching its academic goals. While children learn from the scratch, adults already posses different types of knowledge, which often prevents them from being able to effectively digest new information, because, unlike children, adults critically assess a newly learned material. In addition, adults have a tendency to look for the practical application of abstract principles they learn, during the academic process. This is why most of adult-oriented educational courses are designed around two important principles: time-efficiency and practicality. There are two kinds of knowledge inductive and deductive.

Inductive knowledge is acquired through learning new information on elementary level and then moving on to a higher level. This is the principle upon which the childrens educational process is based. We only expect a child to be able to analyze certain information, after it is being memorized first. With adults, the situation is different. They already posses a lot of empirical knowledge, but they are often unable to organize this knowledge, so that it would benefit them practically. This is why adult educators often use deductive method, when it comes to teaching fully developed individuals.

This method encourages person to bring into play its analytical abilities, in order to be able to find practical applications for abstract ideas. Adults have the ability to come to new ideas with the mean of analyzing their past experiences. Thus, we can say that, unlike children, adults are able to obtain a new knowledge, without having to learn, in empirical sense of this word. This opens up a new horizons for the adult educators, for as long as they are able to find a right catalyst, which forces previously acquired information and experiences, in the mind of adult, to come into reaction with each other, for the purpose of formation a new knowledge.

In her article Adult Learning Theorist Jack Mezirow, Kimeiko Hotel Dover consolidates the main principle of adult education, formulated by Jack Mezirow: Catalysts for transformative learning are disorienting dilemmas, situations which do not fit ones preconceived notions. These dilemmas prompt critical reflection and the development of new ways of interpreting experiences. In this way, transformative learning involves reflectively transforming the beliefs, attitudes, opinions, and emotional reactions that constitute our meaning schemes (Dover). At the same time, it would be wrong to suggest that because adults have deductive learning ability, it means that educational process, designed specifically for them, would have to be based on entirely new principles.

Practice shows that the reason for the majority of adults to study in the first place is to obtain practical skills, which would enable them to improve their social status. In her article Teaching Adults: Is It Different? Susan Imel suggests that the nature of learning process, which is meant to endow person with practical skills, is the same with adults and children: Subject-oriented adult learning In adult learning contexts that are subject oriented, the primary goal is to acquire content. The educator speaks of covering the material, and the learners see themselves as gaining knowledge or skills (Imel, p. 3).

As for today, there is no universally accepted adult education theory. This is because different aspects of children and adult education cannot be thought of outside of specific context. For example, thirty years old man, who wants to learn how to renovate cars, only strives to obtain practical content, which means that educators would have to base learning process on inductive principle. In other words, the individual would have to begin with learning the basics of car renovating. However, if grown individual simply wants to improve its professional efficiency, by acquiring a new knowledge, the emphasis in the learning process would have to be placed on stimulating his analytical abilities, because the newly obtained information can only benefit him, if it becomes fully integrated into his previous knowledge and experiences. (2) In 1991, Jack Mezirow published his book Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning, which introduced readers with his transformative theory of adult education. This theory is meant to help the adults in adjusting to surrounding reality: Rather then merely adapting to changing circumstances by more diligently applying old ways of knowing, discover a need to acquire new perspectives, in order to gain a more complete understanding of changing events and a higher degree of control in their lives.

The formative learning of childhood becomes transformative learning in adulthood (Mezirow, p. 2). We can only agree with the author. The process of learning never stops, throughout our lives. However, as times goes by, it acquires different properties. When we become adults, we do not simply strive to learn new information, in order to broaden our horizons. It is other way around our broadened horizons allow us to hold valuable opinions just about anything, often without possessing an empirical knowledge.

The mind of grown person has an inquisitive quality, which needs to be constantly exercised, if this person wants to be able to keep up with rapidly changing objective reality. We can say that the foremost goal of adult educator is improving adults mental flexibility, by presenting them with different challenges that are solvable, for as long as these adults remain self-confident. For the child, it is important to possess factual information, in order to be able to succeed in academia. Unlike children, adults strive to succeed socially. When it comes to it, understanding of factual data ceases to have importance. What really matters is individuals ability to orient among pieces of knowledge, without having to understand their essence.

For example, the society would crumble if people began interpreting law literally, because different laws are contradictory. This is why we have lawyers, who apply different laws to correspond to the specific circumstances, without believing in the sacredness of law, as they should have in theory. It is no longer necessary for the lawyers to actually understand laws. They only need to be able to manipulate with them with ease, which guarantees attaining a high social status, on their part. The same principle applies to adult learners. Before the learning process begins, they need to be insured that they are fully capable of dealing with professional dilemmas as they arise, even prior to obtaining an official qualification.

This can only be accomplished if adult learners have a sense of self-respect. In its turn, self-respect is acquired through self-reliance. In his article Adults as Learners, Stephen Lieb makes a perfectly good point when he says: Adults are autonomous and self-directed. They need to be free to direct themselves.

Their teachers must actively involve adult participants in the learning process and serve as facilitators for them. Specifically, they must get participants' perspectives about what topics to cover and let them work on projects that reflect their interests. They should allow the participants to assume responsibility for presentations and group leadership. They have to be sure to act as facilitators, guiding participants to their own knowledge rather than supplying them with facts (Lieb). (3) To summarize this essay we can say that all four analyzed authors, mentioned in the paper, agree that adult education process is essentially different from children education.

They emphasize that, in order for the educational process to be effective, educators must adjust it accordingly to the learners audience. In young age, individual has an unsurpassed capacity to memorize. This is why children learn foreign languages with ease, when being placed in foreign speaking environment. The same cannot be said about adults. At the same time, adults are capable of finding practical applications for abstract knowledge, as it was being mentioned before. Children are far behind the adults, in this respect.

Therefore, it is important for the teacher to understand the difference between child and grown up person, when it comes to studying. I fully agree with ideas, expressed in quoted articles and the book, although I find Mezirow's book being little over expanded. He is clearly having a problem staying focused on the subject and uses many sophisticated sounding words that do not have any semantic meaning. Nevertheless, in general, I think that Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning will come in handy to just about any adult educator. As learner, I have experienced problems with the standard children education techniques being applied to me, even though that I am a grown up person. I cannot memorize factual data with ease, as it was the case when I was a kid.

However, some of my teachers consider this as something that simply proves me being a lazy person. In their eyes, this significantly lowers the value of my opinions. Also, they strive to make me adopting their point of view on the subject of studies. This is especially the case in the field of humanitarian disciplines. While trying to instill me with a spirit of political correctness, these teachers operate with such notions of good and evil, without realizing that only children in kindergarten can find utilization of emotional labels, in order to describe the essence of complex socio-political phenomenon, as being quite appropriate. It is clear to me that, even though adult education shares many similar principles with adolescent education, it must be based on recognition of adults analytical ability.

Only then can it be effective. This does not mean that every grown up person can be automatically qualified for the special educational approach. As practice shows, many adults are simply unable to operate with abstract categories, which can be explained by mainly genetic factors. However, when it comes to teaching adults with high IQ, the role of educator needs to be limited to a simple guidance. Grown up people deserve the right to be their own teachers, for as long as they posses the sense of self-discipline. This represents another issue; however, it is beyond the topic of this paper.

Bibliography: Kimeiko, Dover Adult Learning Theorist Jack Mezirow. 2007. About. Com. 9 Aug. 2007. web Mezirow, Jack. Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning.

San Francisco. CA: Jossey-Bass, 1991. Lieb, Stephen Principles of Adult Learning. 1991. About.

Com. 9 Aug. 2007. web Imel, Susan Teaching Adults: Is It Different? . 1995. ERIC. Clearinghouse on Adult, Career and Vocational Education. 9 Aug. 2007. web Abstract: This paper defines the essence of adult education and discusses its different aspects. Outline: Introduction Main part Conclusion


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Research essay sample on Empirical Knowledge Adult Learners

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