Adult Learning In Organizations

What is it that makes up the Course “template"? Is it not some of the best instructional design principles that you will need to create good course content. So what is wrong with the Courses that are being created for adult learners? I am referring to the Courses with a capital C? These are not adapted to basic adult learning principles. Adult learners are self-directed, like experiential learning, prefer relevant learning, appreciate when it solves a problem, and are motivated to learn.

What's Wrong With Courses Today?

What’s wrong with the courses that are being created for adult learners? These courses are mainly focused on theory, after a student takes an interest in some subject they are immediately forced to learn it and try to understand it.

Not apply it. And they are treated as students and not learners.

The problem is that adult learning principles are not being applied to e-learning course creation. Adult learners don't like boring courses with no relevance whatsoever, and they will do everything to avoid them. The most common training programs address adult learning principles but are not designed with adult learners in mind. That's why they fail.

Ever felt like an adult learner is different from a regular student or child? Well, the truth is, they are. But instead of creating courses that attempt to cater to both types of learners, why not create just one course that caters to just adult learners?

Adult Learning Principles

In this article, I cover the basic principles of adult learning. You will discover that everything you learned about teaching ages ago may not be relevant to the adult learner you find in the workplace today. We are all adults but we have different preferences when it comes to learning. Some of us like to learn through reading, some wanna do hands-on while others just want to hear a story and see if they can relate it to their own work life.

These are the 5 principles of adult learning: 1. Self-directedness, 2. Experiential learning, 3. Relevance, 4. Problem solving, 5. Learning out of motivation

The key to successful adult learning in organizations is recognizing the difference between education and training. Education is geared toward establishing a base of knowledge on which individuals can build. Training is geared toward specific workplace skills. Adult learning seeks to establish knowledge, but also needs to be practical and relevant to the workplace. The more specifically an educational program focuses on immediate content and workplace needs, the greater will be its success as learning for adults.

Tempelhoff (2012) summarizes what we know about adult learning. It must be relevant to the learner. It must use non-traditional means. Immersion in a new language, with mastery of sentence structure, is better than rote memorization of grammar rules. And the learner should be motivated to learn and be willing to work hard on exercises.

As adults, we need to see the relevance of what we are learning, need a concrete understanding of how it will help us solve a problem as well as getting an idea about the level of commitment for success. This is important when learning in organizations where people tend to have less spare time for training.

Using the Sales AIDA Method

Attention: Let’s talk about adult learning principles that will revolutionize your training efforts. Adult learners are more independent than traditional learners, though they’re also more motivated by structure. Provide them relevant learning that’s tangible to them and fits within a schedule. Engaging in relevant learning of experience-based, collaborative projects builds confidence, increases motivation, and drives performance. Achieve higher retention rates by sparking retention with relevant peer-to-peer conversations. The networked nature of adult learning relies on peer support both for providing insights and recognizing bad ideas early on. Also, promote reflection to take action on newly gained insights.

Interest: Adult learners are self-directed, like experiential learning, prefer relevant learning, appreciate when it solves a problem, and are motivated to learn. Self-directedness is the concept that adult learners take responsibility for and direct their own learning in ways that challenge them intellectually, stimulate curiosity, and increase their desire to learn more. They'll appreciate the lesson if it addresses one of their top 10 challenges when they have to enhance their skills.

Desire: Organizations need to change their culture from telling people what to do, to asking them how they can help themselves succeed...to be responsible for their own learning. Experiential learning occurs when individuals apply their knowledge and skills to solve real problems or meet real-world needs. They want actionable advice on how to get better results in a variety of scenarios, like by working with others or by improving performance. They like to learn to solve a problem! They are motivated to learn. This is the perfect time to get ahead of your employees' professional development.

Action: If you're looking for better ways to engage and motivate your team members, get out of your traditional thinking. Unfortunately, most adult learning programs fail in the first 18 months. This is largely because they don't keep adult learning principles in mind. Embedding this directly into your organization's learning culture will enhance job performance, productivity, and employee satisfaction.

Note

This is an experimental article generated using Copy AI. The following prompts were used to generate different parts of the article. Assembling the article requires some manual intervention.

"What's wrong with the courses that are being created for adult learners. These are not adapted to basic adult learning principles. Adult learners are self-directed, like experiential learning, prefer relevant learning, appreciate when it solves a problem, and are motivated to learn.

Let's talk about adult learning principles. Adult learners are self-directed, like experiential learning, prefer relevant learning, appreciate when it solves a problem, and are motivated to learn."