Ray Schroeder, founding director of the UPCEA National Council for Online Education, introduced a new term to me in this post: heutagogy. First, he distinguishes andragogy (the teaching of adults) from pedagogy (the teaching of children) using Malcolm Knowles’ four principles of adult learning theory: Adults need to be involved in the planning and evaluation […]
Category: Research
Research on adult and nontraditional learning and pedagogy.
Experiential Learning – Thinking (and Doing) Outside of the Box
Lectures have long been a staple of the college experience. Chances are, as we think about our own time as a student, we may be reminded of those long, clock-watching classes in which we spent as much time counting the ceiling tiles as we did listening to the professor. Times haven’t changed all that […]
How Artificial Intelligence Is Changing Teaching
You may have seen this article, How Artificial Intelligence Is Changing Teaching, in the Chronicle of Higher Education. While the article itself offers a controversial conclusion, the influence of AI on teaching at UR is worth considering. We’re not likely to see large-scale AI solutions deployed as described in this article for large lecture sessions — […]
How to Help Adult Students Succeed
A recent opinion penned by Darcy Richardson, Director of Continuing Education at EdPlus at Arizona State University, identifies the primary reason that adult students enroll in higher education coursework — to “help address gaps between their educational attainment and the demands of their jobs in the face of technological advancements and evolving roles and responsibilities.” […]
Running Class Discussions on Divisive Topics Is Tricky. Here’s One Promising Approach.
The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Teaching newsletter shares Reflective Structured Dialogue as a successful method for facilitating class discussions on divisive topics. The highly structured approach follows strict guidelines for starting the discussion to ensure that participants both speak and listen without trying to convince someone else that their own ideas are best and others’ ideas […]
Adopting Open Educational Resources (OER) Appears to Improve Students’ Grades
According to an Inside Higher Education article, a large-scale study at the University of Georgia has found that college students provided with free course materials at the beginning of a class get significantly better academic results than those that do not. The Georgia study compared the final grades of students enrolled in eight large undergraduate […]
Do Learning Styles Really Matter?
A recent review of the scientific literature on learning styles found scant evidence to clearly support the idea that outcomes are best when instructional techniques align with individuals’ learning styles. In fact, there are several studies that contradict this belief. It is clear that people have a strong sense of their own learning preferences (e.g., […]
Multiplying Impact: Five Frameworks for Investment in EdTech for Adult Learners
This report, available from LINCS: Community, Courses & Resources for Adult Education, explores the potential for technology to enhance the teaching and learning of advanced math skills for adults. In this second of three reports, Power in Numbers examines opportunity areas for technology to drive impact for adult learners. We propose that edtech investors and […]
Adult Workers and Postsecondary Credentials
According to data recently released by the National Center for Education Statistics, most adults in the workforce (58 percent) either have a postsecondary degree or some other form of workforce credential, including postsecondary certificates, occupational licenses or occupational certifications. This is higher than the 45 percent of adult workers with postsecondary credentials using traditional measures that only […]
When Learning Matches Work and Life, Students Appreciate Their Education More
In college, relevance matters. A new survey of consumers found that the more tied their college courses are to their work and daily lives, the greater they believe they’ve received a “high-quality education” that was worth the cost. Among respondents to a Strada Education Network and Gallup survey, those who “strongly” agreed that the courses […]