45 Diversity in the ‘Classroom’
In the past, teaching took place primarily in face-to-face environments and teachers taught a relatively homogenous group of individuals. The learner audience that well-known educational researcher, Malcolm Knowles, studied to develop his “andragogical” perspective on what adult learners need and want from teachers was much less diverse than you are likely to encounter as you explore teaching and facilitating today. Many factors contribute to this increasing diversity and there are various perspectives on how best to respond. Although the general principles of adult learning are still helpful to consider, the diversity of today’s learners requires a flexible and responsive teaching approach.
Your adult learners are likely to appreciate knowing why and how they are to learn (and be evaluated) and enjoy learning activities that are relevant, applicable, and meaningful. But they may need you to offer more assignment choices, to communicate in different ways, or to offer different types of support to help them participate successfully in the learning environment. You’ll need to balance the possibilities of the technologies available for any learning activities with the beliefs, expectations, and abilities of your diverse audience.
Seminal research among adult learning theorists (e.g., Knowles, 1973; Merriam and Caffarella, 1999; Merriam, 1993) revealed that:
- adults continue to learn after completing their formal education
- adults learn differently than children
- adults learn in purposeful, self-directed ways
Malcolm Knowles was a big name in adult education. He argued that adults…
- need to know why they need to learn something
- need to learn experientially
- approach learning as problem-solving
- learn best when the topic is of immediate value
Although Knowles’ research (and others who contributed to ideas about adult learning) caused a paradigm shift in the way courses were designed and how teachers taught, the world of higher education has become increasingly complex.
Due to many changes in society, teachers need to be sensitive to the learning needs of an increasingly diverse audience; adult learners come from different cultures, are at various stages in their educational path, experience different demands from personal circumstances and work demands, and have far greater access to educational choices due to the development of an increasingly connected world with ubiquitous access and mobile devices.
The array of learning technologies, the pace of change in different academic fields, the possibilities introduced by educational technologies, and a renewed emphasis on experiential, inquiry, project-based and mastery learning approaches, makes the task of teaching adults effectively one that requires all the creativity and skills that teachers can apply.