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(Unit 6) Topic 9: Exploring Adult Learning

3 Clock Hours of Early Childhood Education

Schema

​Topic 9 Page 9

​Surely, if you write a wonderfully accurate description of your training and attach a level 1, 2, 3, etc. to it, the “right” learners will come, right? Wrong. While you do your very best to present accurate and applicable information about a course to give potential learners an opportunity to gauge whether they should take it, sometimes this falls short. There are times when descriptions are far off, or participants are not paying close enough attention to the description, or they are convinced that their skills are far above or below the level of training. In addition there may be language barriers, disabilities or challenges, or a complete lack of concern for what course they have signed up for. Because of these and many other factors it is important to do what you can to activate your learner’s schema as much as possible.  

You should activate schema to give learners an opportunity to dive right into the course material and to start the learning immediately. When connections can be made to the topic delivered learners are able to consider them from an applicable and useful standpoint as opposed to an abstract idea to be considered later. Even the Susans in the learning world want applicable information and it is your job to deliver that to them. 

​There are many ways to activate a person’s prior knowledge about a subject but sometimes these things can be boring and mundane. You may choose to discuss a topic or bring up a situation in a bland way for an intended purpose. For example, if I were delivering a course about livening up the delivery of training courses I may begin with a boring PowerPoint presentation and invite the audience to use a group discussion to critique it. This would undoubtedly get their minds working and considering past experience and knowledge about boring training sessions.    

(Unit 6) Topic 9: Exploring Adult Learning​​​ * Navigation Menu