|
A number of philosophies of education exist, and they vary based on K–12, higher education,
and work place learning.
The five major philosophies underlying adult education include (1) liberal
adult education (a popular philosophy underlying education in colleges and universities);
three philosophies that dominate corporate training, including (2) progressive
adult education; (3) behaviorism; and (4) humanistic adult education; and the lesser
known, but equally influential philosophy, (5) radical adult education. Although this
discussion focuses on philosophies underlying adult learning programs, similar
philosophies underlie primary, secondary, and higher education, so although our
discussion focuses on adults, the lessons transfer to other learning environments.
The discussion of each philosophy addresses these questions:
• What is the purpose of education?
• What is the role of the learner?
• What is the role of the instructor?
• What are related concepts and key words?
Additionally, in these discussions, you’ll also see how the different philosophies
express the value of learning and how they place value on it.
A Philosophy Rooted in an Academic Model:
Liberal Adult Education
Liberal adult education is probably the most widely understood and employed philosophy
of learning in the Western world, although it is not common in corporate
training. People who believe in liberal education value the education of minds in
general over training people for specific jobs or careers in particular. Often called liberal
arts, programs developed from this perspective focus on developing learners
who have a basic knowledge about the world in which they live and hone the
learner’s ability to analyze and synthesize a situation to make decisions. As you
might expect, examples of e-learning designed with a liberal adult education philosophy
are common in academic settings.
Although many learning professionals may not be able to name certain philosophies
of education, they would be able to recognize their characteristics and the differences
each suggests for the roles played by learners and facilitators, the presentation of information,
and the assessment techniques. The following sections present three of
the philosophies that underlie most corporate training. We illustrate them by showing
how the topic “food safety” would be taught in each. As we will discuss later,
few programs purely embody one strategy, but the examples for the following three
philosophies have clear leanings.
Progressive Adult Education
Progressive adult education is the raison d’etre for training in many organizations. This
philosophy emphasizes vocational and utilitarian training that betters the individual,
society, and the organization. Training programs based on progressive beliefs
are, first, learner-centric (that is, course design emphasizes the success of the learner
in achieving the goal rather than the transmission of the content to the learner) and,
second, problem focused (that is, courses are designed around solving problems).
Because an assumption underlying this philosophy is that learners are self-directed
(that is, learners take initiative for learning and responsibility for successfully completing
it, such as contacting instructors on their own to ask questions), the role of
the instructor becomes one of planner, instigator, and arranger of the conditions for
learning. The utilitarian and pragmatic nature of this philosophy has extended its
use to other agencies that transmit skills and knowledge such as churches, government
agencies, and social movements. A great example of this is Risk Focused Inspections
published by the State of Alaska, Division of Environmental Health. This
course is anchored in a progressive philosophy that emphasizes practical knowledge
of food safety and sanitation and the problem-solving skills needed to conduct a risk
focused food inspection. You can find examples
of equally pragmatic courses at government sites such as the U.S. Small
Business Administration (www.sba.gov) and U.S. Centers for Disease Prevention
and Control (www.cdc.gov).
Behaviorist Adult Education
Behaviorist adult education has inspired many of the current practices in e-learning,
from the design of courses using the mastery model
to such advanced practices as learning objects linked
to behavioral objectives, personalization of content based on gap analysis, and competency
modeling. In its most extreme form, behaviorist education is simply training
that teaches learners rote behaviors through drill and practice. This philosophy
has been adopted by corporate training because it is grounded in psychological principles
that efficiently produce overt, observable, and measurable outcomes, which
are popular in corporate environments that are also focused on measurable results.
Behaviorist adult education lends itself to clear and measurable outcomes.
To illustrate behaviorism as a learning philosophy, we turn to a different course
about food safety, Farm Food Safety Analysis from TEAGASC.
The program reviews overall principles of analyzing food hazards, and teaches learners
to master the Hazard Analysis and Control Principles (HACCP) approach to
identifying hazards. More specifically, this program focuses on mastery of concepts
related to food safety. The multiple-choice exam offers learners an opportunity to
practice applying the concepts and provides good feedback. The assessment takes
advantage of the Web’s ability to let learners display and interact with images.
Additional examples of the behaviorism abound in e-learning. Some of the best
examples are programs that teach learners how to use desktop applications such as
PowerPoint™ and Excel™. NETg, a Thomson company (www.netg.com), offers an
excellent example of evidence of behaviorist adult education. NETg provides an application
called Precision Learning™, which is a preassessment using performancebased
testing techniques to determine the skills and knowledge that a learner has at
the beginning of a course. After learners complete the preassessment, the system
generates a Precision Learning Track, a personalized learning plan and sequence of
modules recommended to the learner that helps the learner master content that he
or she did not demonstrate mastery of during the preassessment.
Humanistic Adult Education
Humanistic adult education is concerned with the development of the whole person,
with emphasis on the emotional and affective dimensions of the learner. Programs
with a humanistic design are generally targeted to learners who are highly motivated
and self-directed. In fact, this high motivation and self-direction are hallmarks
of humanistic programs, in which learners assume full responsibility for learning.
In such programs, instructors act as guides, organizers of learning, and helpers. That
is, rather than dictate the learning program, instructors in humanistic adult education
programs help learners decide their own learning paths and rely heavily on
communication and collaboration tools.
To illustrate the philosophy of humanistic adult education, we turn to yet another
example drawn from the topic of food safety. This time, we look at the Interactive
Knowledge Exchange (IKE), an online service of the U.S. Food Safety Inspection Service
(FSIS) Technical Service Center.
This learning program relies on e-mail to send out scenarios twice a month to Field
Operations employees. These scenarios are authentic problems that are ambiguous—
like those in the real world. One educational component of the scenarios are questions like “What would you do?” and “What is the correct action?” These questions
are intended to drive discussion and learning in the field. The goal of this program
is to increase employee understanding of how to apply regulations, policies, and
standards for the inspection of meat, poultry, and egg products by presenting them
with realistic scenarios in which aspects of these regulations, policies, and standards
must be addressed. Help from experts working in the headquarters is available to
learners but to succeed in achieving its goal, the program relies on motivated learners
who initiate a dialogue with work groups at the regional and plant levels. The
questions and answers generated by the program are archived for future students
to review.
A Lesser-Known Philosophy: Radical Adult Education
In addition to the liberal adult education (which is popular in colleges and universities)
and the three philosophies of education that dominate corporate training (progressive,
behaviorist, and humanistic adult education), there is a fifth dominant
philosophy in adult education, radical adult education.
Radical adult education is not as well known as the other four philosophies discussed
in this section, but is prevalent throughout e-learning designed for adults.
Radical adult education is the belief that social, political, and economic changes can
be brought about through education. Examples of radical adult education include
programs designed to raise consciousness, teach critical thinking and reflection, and
spur political action or change. One example is Living Sustainably on the Earth
(http://environment.jbpub.com/home.cfm), which encourages sustainable living
practices. Another example is the gang violence prevention program, Coming
Soon to a School Near You: A Project on Youth Gangs (http://mail.nvnet.org/
~cooper_j/YouthGangWQSite/). Coming Soon to a School Near
You is an award-winning WebQuest designed for high school students. WebQuest
is an online teaching strategy developed by Bernie Dodge that uses inquiry-oriented
activities in which learners interact with information gleaned primarily from other
sites on the Internet (hence the name WebQuest because learners embark on a quest
for information on the Internet). Although not technically designed for adults, the
strategies used provide a clear example of radical adult education. Notice how images
and questions are used to raise awareness. The questions in this program promote
critical thinking and reflection, ultimately to help learners decide whether to
stay out of or join a gang. The goal of the program is to influence students to make a
thoughtful choice that has a social and economic impact. |
Disclaimer
