Adult Learning

“I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think” ― Socrates

This week I had a wonderful time facilitating a workshop on #ReverseOsmosis operation, automation and data analytics. As usual I spent significant amount of time practicing for the workshop to make it interesting for the participants to listen and learn. To my surprise I experienced one of the best learning ever in my life. Though there were many I would like to highlight below four items and hope this might benefit …

#1 Adult participants are different and should not be treated the same as kids. The participants developed the curiosity to learn only when they saw the purpose and reason. Here is where I understood the term "Andragogy".

#2 Most adults like experiential learning and not just by listening to lectures.

#3 They have their own way of communicating things and I saw a lot of energy channeled towards active learning the moment I started listening to each one of them. Their words, body language, facial reaction etc. This also helped me built trust and trust enabled everyone to feel less vulnerable about individual weakness and be open.

#4 There were times the participants saw me struggle about things they do not know but eventually we found out the answer together. Everyone has something to add and that makes a solution better.

Hope you too enjoyed it. Add your comments if you too had similar experience.