ERIC Clearinghouse for Community c...

ERIC Clearinghouse for Community corporations

Community colleges enroll above 2.5 million adult students, defined as those age 25 and older In 1997 nearly a third of community association students were age 30 or older; 46 percent were age 25 or older (Philippe, 2000) Attracting the enrollment of adult scholars however, is only the first grade in helping them achieve their educational goals. Adult scholars particularly if they are the first in their families to follow postsecondary education, are often unfamiliar with for what reason to succeed in the community corporation (Valadez, 1993). This digest will review adult students' learning expectations and privations followed by recommendations for community society s to facilitate responsibility for learning in adult bookish mans

Expectations of Adult pupils

Adult close examiners come to community colleges with a variant put of characteristics. They are more likely to attend part-time, to take courses for self-improvement initially rather than for standing completion, and to enroll intermittently. They oftentimes work full-- time and support contingents frequently as single parents (Horn & Carroll; 1996) They are likely to take longer to unimpaired their programs, but because they take their education seriously, they generally earn better grades than younger bookish mans do (Horn &Carroll, 1996). Adults bring realistic, practical goals for their education and valuable life experience to the community corporation classroom (Brookfield, 1986; Knowles, 1984; Lawler, 1991)

However, adult observers attending community colleges for the first time are sometimes inadequately prepared, the one and the other academically and psychologically, for what will be calculate uponed for college-level learning. In particular, first-- generation scholars may have given little notion to postsecondary education while still in high sect - or may never have complet high denomination at all - and therefore lack realistic expectations (Valadez, 1993) They be attentive to to feel what Brookfield (1999) labels impostership, a intellect that they have neither the ability nor calm the right to become literary institution [i]or[/i] seminary of learning students. They are likely to keep possession of stereotypical impressions of college teachers, envisioning them as the all-knowing adroits who pour wisdom into the heads of their observers When adult students taking classes for the first time hear instead that they must think for themselves, that there are no clear right or wicked answers, and that the final cause of a college education is to ask the right questions rather than find the right answers, they may be impressed confused, frustrated, and perhaps plane cheated (Brookfield, 1999).

To elicit interest that leads to involvement, which in change the direction of encourages responsibility, the curriculum must take into account what questions are mostly intriguing and significant to learners Course content must also bring about a sufficient grasp of general [i]or[/i] abstract notions principles, or skills that adult observers can apply to new enigmas and situations (Barr &Tagg, 1995)

Learning to Learn

Adult learners enroll in community colleges with already established lives, bringing far more experience and practical information than younger bookish mans They are interested in knowing to what degree new knowledge relates to what they already know in such a manner that they can create a framework within which they can make perception of the new information (Brookfield, 1986; Knox, 1977) Adult learners benefit from being able to associate novel learning with their previous experiences and accomplishments, what Brookfield (1986) confines a "connectedness" to learning. Thus, effective approaches to helping adults learn include contributions from the bookish mans and their involvement in what is being taught and for what cause it is being taught. In keeping with the mission of community bodys to encourage life-long learning, single goal of the faculty should be to lead pupils to becoming self-- directed learners, and to do in like manner means encouraging and supporting adult students' involvement in their admit learning.

Adult students, as fruits of an educational system that has traditionally placed responsibility for the learning proces forward the instructor, are initially likely to look forward to to be passive recipients of knowledge. Moving from a conditioned student role towards a part as an independent and engaged learner is the adult student's first stair to taking responsibility for his or her education. often has been written on by what mode institutions should change to befitting the needs of adult close examiners but a more realistic approach to helping adults reach their educational goals is to provide them with the knowledge and skills they will ne to fit the challenges of the community literary institution [i]or[/i] seminary of learning Thus, the emphasis in the classroom should be upon not only what they learn still also how they learn.

The mostly widely known model of instruction for adult learners is Knowles' (1984) protoplast of andragogy. Compared to the traditional instructor-centered pedagogy, andragogy assumes five factors related to helping adults learn:

1 motion from dependent to independent, self-directed learning