Do you pay attention to how you facilitate training of adult trainees?

PAUL NYAUSARU 

Over the centuries, much attention has been directed towards the issue of effective facilitation of learning with regard to adult learning.

This week we focus on one of the concepts of adult learning, which have become the pillar of corporate training. This article focuses on the area of adult learning as well as assumptions underlying adult learning.

Firstly, let us briefly examine the differences between adults and children.

The following are some of the notable differences between adults and children that will influence our facilitation initiatives towards adults in a training environment.

Firstly, it has been noted that children rely mostly on others to decide what is important to be learned while adults decide for themselves what is important to be learned.

This leaves adults with the freedom to decide for them the direction them may take in terms of their career aspirations.

Secondly, children expect what they are learning to be useful in their long-term, while adults expect what they are learning to be immediately useful.

If the learning is related to their job, they expect to be able to use the information gained immediately to improve the way they do the job.

Thirdly, children have little ability or no experience upon which to draw, that, is they are relatively “ clean slates” while on the other hand adults do possess much experience upon which to draw, that is, they may have fixed viewpoints.

This is an indicator to show that adults have much to bring into the training environment.

Finally, children have little ability to serve as a knowledgeable resource to their teacher or fell classmates while adults do possess a significant ability to serve as knowledgeable resource to the facilitator.

Having knowledge of these fundamental differences is important to you as a trainer since they give a clear picture of the nature of trainee that you are dealing with and will guide you in choosing the appropriate training techniques to use during training.

It is also important for you as a trainer to be aware of some of the assumptions underlying adult learning as it will assist you in knowing your trainees better.

The following are some of the assumptions underlying adult learning that you might need to pay attention to. The first one is self-directedness.

It is assumed that as a person grows up and takes   on varying life tasks, he/she tends to depend more on his/her own judgment than the judgment of others.

This then shows that adult learners are driven by their maturity to enable them not take things at face value.

The second assumption has to do with Experience as a person matures, they accumulate a growing reservoir of experience that becomes an increasing resource for learning.

As a trainer, you then need to take advantage of that reservoir of experience during the training session in order to enrich the training programme.

The other assumption underlying adult learning is Readiness to learn.

It is assumed that as a person grows and matures his/her readiness to learn is   increasingly oriented towards the developmental tasks of his/her social roles.

The fourth assumption has to do with orientation to learning.

The assumption in this case is that as a person grows and matures his time perspective changes from one of postponed application of knowledge to immediacy of application and accordingly his orientation towards learning shifts from one of subject-centeredness to one of problem centeredness.

This leaves you as the trainer with the task of ensuring that you succeed in facilitating the transfer of knowledge acquired in a training situation into the real work environment so that the trainee is able to solve work-related problem immediately after training.

The last assumptions are linked to Motivation to learn on the part of the adult learner.

It is assumed that at the level of a maturing   individual, motivation to learn    is intrinsic; it is an often internally derived motivation to engage into some learning enterprise.

So it is imperative for every trainer to take time and reflect on the issues raised in this article with aim of knowing better the trainee they are dealing with.

Paul Nyausaru is an HR Practitioner and leadership coach. For all your HR interventions and leadership development training you can get in touch with him on WhatsApp/call +263774062756 or Email pnyausaru@gmail.com