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Spotlight on Adult Learning Theorists
As your interest in training grows, you may find it helpful to dig deeper into the work of some of these experts.
Cyril Houle
One of the pioneers of model adult education, Houle is best known for his analysis of motivation in adult learning. Houle described adult learners as goal-oriented, activity-oriented, or learning-oriented. His most influential work is The Inquiring Mind (1961).
Allen Tough
A student of Houle, Tough is most closely associated with self-directed learning among adults and adult learning projects. Tough’s work forms the major research basis for the current emphasis on self-direction in adult education.
David Kolb
Influenced by the ideas of Piaget, Dewey, Lewin, and others, Kolb focused on the role of experiential learning in adult education. His work resulted in a greater understanding of adult learning styles and preferences, along with the roles of reflection, experience, abstraction, and experimentation in adult learning experiences.
Paulo Freire
Freire’s best-known work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970), is considered a classic among adults educators. Freire is most closely associated with a philosophy of education called critical pedagogy and is well-known for his disdain of what he called the “banking theory” of education, in which students are little more than accounts to be filled with knowledge by their teachers.
Jack Mezirow
Mezirow, whose research and work complement that of Freire, established what is now known as transformation theory. Mezirow’s work reinforces the belief that adults can be transformed using critical reflection, in which they find new ways of characterizing their experiences and assumptions. Mezirow’s works include Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning (1991) and Fostering Critical Reflection in Adulthood (1990).
Malcolm Knowles
Called the father of adult learning or the father of andragogy, Knowles popularized the concept of andragogy throughout North America in the 1960s and 1970s. Andragogy is loosely translated as the art of science of helping adults learn and is the theoretical model most often associated with contemporary adult education. Tow of Knowles’ works, The Modern Practice of Adult Education: From Pedagogy to Andragogy (1980) and The Adult Learner (1973) are still used by many adult educators and trainers today.
Adapted from Best Practices for Training Early Childhood Professionals, Sharon Bergen (2009)
2016