Trends that might impact adult education in 2013

Colleagues,

Here's an education trend quote for 2013: "It has always been my opinion that 'education' is something people do to you, whereas 'learning' is something you do for yourself. Consequently, the only thing I learned in school was typing. In the old days, people like me who don't have college degrees had a hard time thriving in society. But today, the ability to learn on your own or from your peers has become really easy. I think this change is leading to a fundamental disruption in education. Independent and lifelong learning are really starting to peak - there is an inflection point coming around how people learn." 

Joi Ito, head of the Massachusetts Institute for Technology (MIT) Media Lab

http://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/insights/featured/joi-itos-trends-to-watch-in-2013/

What's your reaction to this predicted trend in the context of adult basic education (including ESOL/ESL) and professional development?

What other trends do you think might have an impact on adult education in 2013?

David J. Rosen

djrosen123@gmail.com

 

 

Comments

.How refreshing to read David Rosen's "education trend" about people learning on their own. The only good reason to study is to learn how to do something new or get better at doing something one already knows.  Fortunately for me I learned the Study Technology promoted by Applied Scholastics. Since then I have taught numerous children and adults how to study. This technology includes the Three Barriers To Study and the obvious symptoms that occur when these barriers are breeched.  If educators created students who could learn on their own we would have much happier students.  Being stuffed with data or stuffing others with data is a sorry use of time.  I encourage anyone who wishes to help another become an independet learner to check out the Applied Scholastics website.

Sharon Hillestad

Applied Scholastics Tutor

Hello! 

Check out a vision for online learning by Isaac Aimov in this 1988 video. Sound familiar? 

Once we have "outlets"/ computer "outlets" in every home... each of them hooked up to enormous libraries, where anyone can ask any question and be given answers - be given reference material - to something YOU ARE INTERESTED IN KNOWING...[...] ... and You can ask - and You can find out - and You can follow it up - and You can do it in Your own home - at Your own speed - in Your own direction - in Your own time... Then Everyone Will Enjoy Learning.

http://youtu.be/CJAIERgWhZQ

Kris Witte

kmwitte1@msn.com

Kris,

Thanks for calling our attention to this Isaac Asimov 1988 interview. I agree, it's the same idea, that with technology there is much greater opportunity that individuals can learn (what they want to learn) on their own, in informal or nonformal education, outside formal school.

As long as the Internet was only able to provide information by text (and not necessarily very readable text) this opportunity was enjoyed by those who could read well and who liked to read to get information. Asimov's vision was right, but as a trend it was slow on the uptake, not for everyone.

I wonder, however, if online instructional videos have changed that.

Do you watch learning videos, informal, how-to videos to learn to (or improve how to) do things? Do others you know watch YouTube learning videos for example? If you are teaching, do your students watch them for things they want to learn or learn to do? Are these online videos the accelerator of Asimov's prediction?

David J. Rosen

djrosen123@gmail.com

Hello everyone,

There is so much education available online; however, I doubt independent learning is peaking. We must first mitigate the digital divide. Those without access are often those who chould benefit the most.

~Allison Pickering

I don't think this really applies to most of my ABE students.  If they could pursue education and learn on their own they would have passed the TABE test and moved on to their GED. The reality is that many students were failed by public education at a very young age and seek dependency as a  lifesstyle. Some seem to think passing the GED is "magic" or "luck," that they will get sooner or later if they just go through the motions. As a teacher I believe it is my role to ground them in using their brain for something beyond pursuit of the opposite sex and achievement by way of the path of least resistance. Technology is just another distraction from facing reality, so they become addicted to it.

Donn Liston, MEd

Anchorage, Alaska

Donn and other teachers,

Have you asked your students if they ever visit YouTube? If so, have you asked if they have ever looked for -- or watched -- videos that can show them how to do something (home maintenance or repairs, car, motorcycle or bicycle maintenance or repairs, improve their bowling, tennis, or other sport performance, knit, crochet, find a job, improve their writing, e.g. spelling or grammar? or something else) If you haven't  asked them yet, please do, and let us know what they said.

Maybe your students aren't learning anything on their own, but I doubt it. I bet they are, and maybe some are learning by watching YouTube videos. Possibly some are trying to enhance their education as well as their learning, although I agree that this might be a stretch for some.

I wonder if other teachers reading this agree that what Donn said, that he thinks his ABE students don't use online learning, and cannot learn on their own, applies to their students too. If so, does this apply to all learning or just (more formal) education like studying for the GED exam?

BTW, anyone else care to mention other trends that might affect adult education in 2013?

David J. Rosen

djrosen123@gmail.com

 

Mr. Rosen, I have to object to you characterizing my position as “he thinks his ABE students don’t use online learning, and cannot learn on their own…” That is not what I said or implied.

I would be very hesitant to categorize the range of students I experience as all having one generic quality or capability, but a short attention span and expectations of immediate gratification, would be two general factors that come quickly to mind. Sure, we have computerized learning programs for students to use as a supplement to actually learning in class what they need to know, but I have yet to see one single student pass the GED, or even the TABE, through that alone. (Since I don’t know every person who graduates through our program I could be lacking in authority on this point.)

Rather, my point is: Technology is a two-edged sword. Those of us who are able to noodle it out by jumping into it and embracing all the related psycho-babble may wonder why others without our enthusiasm feel threatened by it. Our schools around the nation have replaced meaningful wood shops and concrete learning venues with computer labs for speculative learning. One thing we do know for certain, however: Through the Internet the pornography market has grown beyond anyone’s expectations!  In reality I have yet to see students who used technology for much more than entertainment and pursuit of the opposite sex, but again, I don’t have time to watch much “Youtube”.

I went to a high school with extensive wood and auto shop programs. Working with wood and building quality items of value has become my passion. Today the kids who aren’t working out in academic programs are sent to those kinds of programs, in Anchorage. The rest are floated through the public system and upon graduation are about as qualified for the world of work as the many salmon fry released from Alaska rivers into the ocean every fall.

There, a lot of them are eaten by predators while listening through earbuds to itunes on their “smart phones”. Cherish the irony.

Donn Liston, MEd

Anchorage, Alaska

Donn,

Sorry if I misunderstood you. You wrote: "I don't think this really applies to most of my ABE students.  If they could pursue education and learn on their own they would have passed the TABE test and moved on to their GED." 

I interpreted the first sentence,  "I don't think this applies to most of my ABE students" to mean that you do not think that they use online learning. I interpreted the underlined part of the second sentence, "If they could pursue education and learn on their own they would have passed the TABE test and moved on to their GED" as meaning that you thought your students could not learn on their own.

Please clarify what you did mean by these two statements.

Thanks.

David J. Rosen

Djrosen123@gmail.com

I don’t know for certain if any of my students use on-line resources to further their own learning, per se. I can speculate that some might but it is a casual application at best.

Whether they choose to apply on-line resources to learn anything they don’t know is more to the point of what I was saying. Those who have chosen to apply on-line learning resources are likely already graduates. Whether my students are capable of using on-line resources to further their education is not known, but their inclination to do so is obvious--most don't.

Donn Liston, MEd

Anchorage, AK

While Ito's comment may have relevance in regard to technological innovation, its application to ABE students is a bit more complicated. Independent learning is also a skill that must be acquired--whether through school or home culture. While it's important that we honor the perhaps less-conventional types of intelligence with which our students enter our classrooms, I think it's also important to recognize that intellectual curiosity, self-motivated inquiry, and critical thinking are skills that can and should be obtained from this thing we call an "education". If our students don't have the advantage of already being exposed to those skills before they enter the classroom, it is our job to introduce them, or in essence to teach our students how to learn.

Sarah Goffman

Professional Development Coordinator

Pre-College Academic Programming, LaGuardia Community College

http://www.laguardia.edu/pcap/

 

 

Sarah,

I have known adult learners who didn't appear to be independent learners in class but in fact were very self-directed in the rest of their lives, and who learned many things on their own, outside class. There's a name for this: nonformal learning. Most people in the world do it to some degree. Some, including adult learners, do a lot of nonformal learning. It doesn't necessarily shine however in a formal classroom.

Mark Twain said (paraphrasing him) that his whole life was an education, except of course for the years he spent in school.

Could you ask some of the teachers you work with if they could (informally) ask their students if they watch YouTube videos, in particular if they watch them to learn how to do (or improve in) something they are interested in, or to change something in their lives? If so, let me know what you find out. For example, what kinds of learning videos do they watch?

I am intriigued by your " If our students don't have the advantage of already being exposed to those skills ["self-motivated inquiry, and critical thinking] before they enter the classroom, it is our job to introduce them, or in essence to teach our students how to learn." Do you have some thoughts about how best to do that? Do you think, if students are already doing informal learning on their own that there is the possibility of transference of those skills to formal learning? Specifically, if someone learns how to do something from a YouTube video, such as how to repair a toilet, are there skills from that independent learning experience that could be transferred to formal learning like how to write a complete sentence? Are  skills like preparation with the proper tools and materials, careful attention to detail, active listening, following steps in order, repeating a section that was not understood in the first viewing (or reading), evaluating the quailty of what was done, and/or the attitude of persistence, transferable from informal to formal learning? If so, do you think this would be a fruitful way to introduce these "self-directed" learning skills in a formal setting?

David J. Rosen

djrosen123@gmail.com

 

 

 

I do have some thoughts on how to teach students how to learn. 1) Teach them that it is necessary to understand the words and symbols that they come across in text. 2)  Teach them how to demonstrate concepts that they are trying to learn.  3)  Teach them to start learning a subject at the correct gradient or step.

 When my son went to college and before taking a course on electricity (of which he knew absolutely nothing); he bought a 5th grade text book on the subject.  His comment to me was "they draw pictures in those books".  He knew enough to start his study at a lower level.

I met a woman who wanted to be an airline controller.  She took a three week cram course to qualify.  After she flunked the qualifying test, she decided to study the materials again.  But this time she used the knowledge gained from a Learning How to Study booklet.  She took time to define each of the new words and symbols that were in the instruction manuals. She demonstrated by drawing or modeling the numerous concepts and rules. She retook the test and did pass the second time.  Some of the others, who had memorized rather than understood the material, were flunking the training even though they had passed the qualifying test initially.

I know a high school drop out who did a course on How to Study and then went on to study cosmotology. She constantly asked questions.  She did not go passed anything that she did not understand.  She probably was a major pain in the neck to her instructors.  But only two girls out of 20 passed the state board exams the first time and she was one of them. 

Thirty or more years ago I read about a man who had made himself a professional in three areas: plumbing, taxidermy and carpentry.  No one taught him how to study.  He just knew that he had to understand and would find pictures in the catalog for every tool or other item he came across in the manuals. Then he could read the directions with comprehension. He couldn't understand why everyone didn't study that way.  Yet this was so unusual that it was in newspaper!

Ask your students what words mean.  Small common words give the biggest problems.  Check it out for yourself.  Look up the following words in a dictionary: to, on, for, such, or, run. They have numerous definitions.  Of course every course of study has its jargon that has to be confronted.  Getting students willing and able to use the dictionary is a vital. The internet makes such study even more possible.

Danielson44,

Great advice and examples. I have another example:

Many years ago my auto mechanic, an immigrant, asked for my help tutoring him in English so he could read the (fairly advanced level English) texts needed to prepare for a Toyota repair license. After one tutoring session it became clear to us who was more "literate" in reading this kind of text; he was. Although I have a much better mastery of English language, he had familiarity with the background knowlege. He knew the details of how automobile systems work. With the ample illustrations and photos in the text, and with a dictionary to look up the pronunciation or meaning of key words, he could study without my help. He just needed a little encouragement from me that this was possible.  He was highly motivated, and had good problem-solving skills. He passed the test.

I have added this example to encourage others -- on this English language learning CoP -- to add their own examples of how they have helped (or observed) English language learners effectively learning how to learn.

In some of the examples so far, pictures (photographs and/or illustrations) have been used by readers to get meaning from text. Is that strategy expanded or improved when high-quality how-to videos are added to the set of learning-to-learn strategies? Have you (have any teachers here) found that their English language students are finding videos (for example, on YouTube) that they are using to learn English -- or to learn to do something _and_ improve their English language skills at the same time? If so, please tell us about it.

David J. Rosen

djrosen123@gmail.com

Mr. Rosen,
 

The Florida Literacy Coalition's youtube channel, http://www.youtube.com/user/fliteracy, has created several playlists for literacy practitioners to use in their teaching and for those adult learners that seek to learn independantly. These playlists include ESOL, GED Preparation, Financial Literacy, Health Literacy, Learning Disabilities, and are updated regularly.

FLC doesn't post "How-to" videos in these playlists. However, it does compile video resources which can benefit educators and students alike. Our hope is that these playlists are of use to whomever may be seeking videos for literacy education.

It seems unclear as to how many adult learners are seeking resources on the internet, but according to the success of the Five Paragraph Essay video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djqpUAmrWuE&feature=plcp&list=PLc0BtI8B0p-EAN5W69S3WRWGIBlewi7XR) located on the Youtube channel named MLoTSAdultEducation, which has now exceeded 15,000 views, there are active adult independant learners out there.

John A. Sanchez

AmeriCorps VISTA* at Florida Literacy Coalition

1.     Context

2.     Vocabulary----concepts

3.      Pictures  

 

I am currently writing a path guide for some trails on Mt. Desert Island, Maine.

ALL of the people who read my guide are hikers, so their background knowledge supports their use of the guide.

I will link any new vocabulary to to larger contexts, like global warming.

Every hike will have pictures of the route, annotated by me, since I will have hiked everything I write about.

I call them "Nature Notes."

Along with the pictues will be pertinent text on topics that further illuminate the context.

Ex:  Edith Farrand, landscape gardener.  She designed many gardens on the Island.  One hike will include the site of

her garden near Great Head.  On another page I will include written knowlege about her and about garden design.

 

I have been part of this discussion for *gasp* at least 15 years.  

Context, pictures, vocabulary work at every learning level.

 

About sarcasm/humor--it absolutely doesn't work on the flat screen of a computer, no pictures of the writer that would help decode the meaning

of a written message.

 

Andrea

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi David and others in this discussion,

I have been following this interesting discussion strand. I am always been interested in non-formal education and the reasons why adults choose between that, informal, and formal education.  Certainly one reason would be the skills or lack thereof that cause learners to choose one over the other.  Past failures, specific disabilities, availability of opportunities, etc. would all apply as well.

I was recently reading a report from the    that I found noteworthy. Below is a interesting trend that they found.

 

 

 

The first question that begs asking is who participates in adult learning? More provocatively though we should ask who does not? Such a question provides some challenging answers, essentially along the lines that those who need the  most get the least. Despite recognition of the benefits of education and training to groups and individuals at risk of social exclusion there is strong and consistent evidence that the participation of disadvantaged groups in all kinds of adult education (formal, informal and non-formal) continues to be lower than that of other group.  

According to one of the latest studies conducted by Eurostat, participation rates vary depending on the type of learning. Participation in non-formal learning is four times higher than in formal learning

For the 25 EU countries we find;

Participation in Formal Adult Education by previous educational attainment:

Low 1.4%        Medium 5.2%              High 8.5% 

Participation in Non-formal Adult Education by previous educational attainment:

Low 6.5%        Medium 16.4%            High 30.9% 

Participation in Informal Adult Education by previous educational attainment:

Low 18.4%      Medium 34.1%            High 55.2% .

 

The entire report can be found at http://www.eaea.org/index.php?k=10263.

 

Rochelle Kenyon, SME

 

 

 

 We do not have many ESL students in our program and these students tend to be well above the basic English level though not necessarily fluent at the level of the GED in reading and writing. One of my students has been using a program called Brainpop. She finds it tremendously helpful. This student went exploring on her own for something to enhance her learning. She recommends it to everyone though she says it is a program you have to pay for. She also recommends it as something kids can use when they want to be on the computer but you want them learning something. Her children seem to enjoy it. I know she loves it because she tells me all the time how she used it to work on something at home.

 Carol King

Adult Education Teacher

Fernley Adult Education Center

As an ESL student back in the 60s and also as a secondary English teacher for 17 years thereafter, I found one big problem was knowing what there was to learn and to teach for learning to spell. As an ESL learner i had the additional problem of being constantly unsure if I was pronouncing new words correctly.

That's why i ended up trying to establish exactly what learning to spell English involves and creating my free website and blogs.

I hope that teachers and students find them helpful, especially

http://englishspellingproblems.blogspot.com/2009/12/rules-and-exceptions-of-english.html for spelling patterns

and

http://englishspellingproblems.blogspot.com/2010/11/english-spelling-rules.html    for words with unpredictable spellings.

Masha Bell

Ex English teacher, now independent literacy researcher
Author of ebook SPELLING IT OUT (2012),<?xml:namespace prefix = o />

www.EnglishSpellingProblems.co.uk
http://EnglishSpellingProblems.blogspot.com
http://ImprovingEnglishSpelling.blogspot.com
and Youtube video 'Why improve English spelling?'

 

 

I'm really interested in this discussion about dependence and independence in the adult learners.  I believe that the biggest trend for 2013 will be the widespread adoption of blended learning (see my LINCS post on the topic).  But, the success of blended learning depends on learners taking ownership of some aspects of their own study program.  Does the tendancy toward dependence completely undermine that? Not in my experience. What are the specific efforts that we as teachers can make to increase independence, or at least decrease dependence? 

I'm tempted to say that teachers need to choose which character trait they're encouraging and rewarding: dependence or independence. However, I know it's really a balancing act.  David Rosen's suggestion of online learning is not an all or nothing proposition. It requires a hybrid approach that moves the learners further down the continuum toward self-sufficiency.

Jason Guard, MPA Account Manager and GED and Distance Education Specialist GED Academy and Essential Education Direct:(800)390-9307 Fax:(541)230-1171 jason@passged.com Twitter: @jkguard