Dobiora.weebly.com



September 13, 2015Dear future David,How are you? I can't even begin to imagine how and or what my life will be like without choosing this education/career path. As you may or not remember, I’m writing this to you from the past. As of today, I am in the last week of my second course AET 500 at the University of Phoenix. In this assignment, we are asked to write a letter to our future self about what we need to know to be effective adult educator. I am building this capsule as a way to remind you of who you were and how well you have prepared and worked hard to be where and, or what you are now.I believe an effective adult educator is a combination of skills including interpersonal skills, knowing-learning-encouraging students towards individual and educational goals and even pushing yourself to keep ahead and problem solve to resolve learning difficulties...to name, but a few. No one thing works with all adult learners all the time. An effective adult educator must therefore, often think outside of the box to find a way to get to learners/students...Understanding the needs of learners is always very important and remember, there is almost always another way...., and most importantly, taking adult education and adult learning theory into account when training adults/employees, it’s also important to use delivery modes that support the way adults learn.Another important component that helped me on the path to becoming an effective adult educator that you are now was being innovative. I was able to utilize the American Society for Training and Development, (ASTD) Competency model in content delivery. You may be wondering or asking what that means; here it goes; the ASTD Competency Model is a set of exemplary workplace learning and development professionals’ trainings that involves the utilization of innovative strategies that meets the needs of the ever changing training/learning needs, which reflects current and emerging practices in the field and may include simulations and other technologies that will meet the needs /purpose of the training.The main purpose of the ASTD is to support and equip trainers with the skills and knowledge to train others (employees) in organizations around the world. They support the talent development profession by providing trusted content in the form of research, books, webcasts, events, and education programs. They also host a variety of conferences several times a year, including the premier international gathering for talent development practitioners.In relation to education, they support and train learning professionals who need to develop their skills in specific areas. The association’s educational programs are very accessible and depending on your needs, you can find programs that focus on subjects you need to master. They use methods that allow employees/learners to access the information they need as they need it, hence allow them to exercise ownership over the learning process and immediately tie learning to practical application. These might include context sensitive help, embedded links to video tutorials or brief online training modules supplemented by discussion forums and social networks. The key to making this type of training effective is to have it readily available to the employee so it can be accessed “on demand” and to curate information as necessary to focus knowledge exploration. For instance, you could describe training and development processes using two dimensions - one for the degree of formality and one for the balance between self-directed and other-directed learning. These two sets of choices result in four overall approaches. The decision about what approach to take to training depends on several factors. These factors include the amount of funding available for training, specificity and complexity of the knowledge and skills needed, timeliness of training needed, and capacity and motivation of the learner. Workplace learning opportunities are offered by the Learning & Organization Development team, and, or non-profit associations like the ASTD; which provides consulting, coaching, workshops, retreats and tools for individuals, groups and organizations. Informal learning is very likely the most common form of learning. There is no formal structure or curriculum, and usually no expert trainer who teaches students. There usually is no formal recognition of completion, for example, a certificate or diploma. Informal learning is ideal for very experienced people. Formal learning is ideal for new learners, for example, to learn a new technology or specific procedure.The most prominent form of informal training is learning from experience on the job. Examples are informal discussions among employees about a certain topic, book discussion groups, and reading newspaper and journal articles about a topic. A more recent approach is sending employees to hear prominent speakers, sometimes affectionately called "the parade of stars".Formal training is based on some standard "form". Formal training involves carefully proceeding through systematic phases: A systematic approach is goal-oriented (hopefully, to produce results for the organization and/or learners), with the results of each phase being used by the next phase. Typically, each phase provides ongoing evaluation feedback to other phases in order to improve the overall system's process. Note, again, that not all formal methods are systematic. Some courses, workshops, and other training sessions have goals; the most important skill for today's rapidly changing workforce is skills in self-reflection. The highly motivated, self-directed learner with skills in self-reflection can approach the workplace as a continual classroom from which to learn.There is also, other-directed Learning, where someone other than the learner drives what training activities will occur. Other-directed, informal training includes, e.g., supervisors sending employees to training about diversity, policies, sexual harassment in the workplace. "Other-directed', formal training can be highly effective for helping learners gain desired areas of knowledge and skills in a timely fashion. A drawback is that learners can become somewhat passive, counting on the "expert" to show them what they should be doing and when.However, facilitators can help with the motivation piece by improving the training/teaching competences of the staff of adult education provider institutions and organizations/trainers, to impact both the content and the delivery mode of adult education in order to better motivate their adult learners. This may also include promoting innovative strategies for in-service training of adult educators with a view to enhancing adult learners’ motivation and active engagement in lifelong learning. To provide adult educators with a set of creative and critical thinking strategies to use in adult learning contexts to do so, we promote creativity by creating innovative learning strategies. Within the project, we have developed, tested and shared a set of innovative strategies to increase adults’ intrinsic motivation for learning, ensure profound learning and transfer of new acquisitions by means of developing metacognitive skills. “Ethics is another sensitive component that helped me thrive and made it this far. It is simply the branch of philosophy which investigates that which is good, bad, wrong, morally approved or disapproved within groups or cultures” (p. 224). The link to adult education occurs in determining the mission of adult education and the specific delivery system resulting from that mission. Clearly, ethics are an integral part of adult education practice, but adult educators need to develop a greater awareness and sensitivity to ethical issues. Brockett (1990) suggests the following ideas for promoting ethical practice in adult education: --Reflect on ethics in practice. Finding time for personal and group reflection on ethical issues is important because it helps uncover ethical dilemmas and resolve conflicts before they arise. --Examine the practices of other professions: Learning how other professions deal with ethical dilemmas can lead to more insights about the ethics of adult education practice. Although this approach may be helpful, Brockett warns against uncritical adoption of practices that are incompatible with adult education's philosophical approaches, to mention, but a few.As you are now reading this letter, you begin to remember and, or reflect on the challenges you encountered and overcame to be where you are now. It has been a learning experience and I hope all of it was worth it, not in vain. This learning experience was the ground upon which I built the foundation of your future to enable you to reach the sky. Your one and only, David.Reference:Brookfield, S. (1986). Understanding and facilitating adult learning: A comprehensive analysis of principles and effective practices. McGraw-Hill Education (UK).Boud, D., & Garrick, J. (1999). Understanding learning at work. Psychology Press.Carnevale, A. P. (1990). Workplace Basics: The Essential Skills Employers Want. ASTD Best Practices Series: Training for a Changing Work Force. Jossey-Bass Inc., Publishers, 350 Sansome Street, San Francisco, CA 94104.Rainbird, H., Fuller, A., & Munro, A. (Eds.). (2004). Workplace learning in context (pp. 38-53). London: Routledge.Sims, R. R., & Felton Jr, E. L. (2006). Designing and delivering business ethics teaching and learning. Journal of Business Ethics, 63(3), 297-312. ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download