Why is it necessary to design classes especially for adults? A class is a class, right? Why not use the same courses for everyone? Because adults are different than children. Children are intended to learn through “Pedagogy,” which is curriculum designed for children. Ped means child. However, most trainers in the workplace know that adults learn differently, and it is through the method of “Andragogy”, which is a teaching style intended for adults. Pedagogy is the process by which children learn whole new knowledge, while andragogy is the process by which adults learn the specialized knowledge that allows them to advance in their capabilities and jobs.

The first attempts to design learning for adults came from the military. The military faced a real problem. They needed a way to instruct all soldiers to fight in a war, and they needed to ensure that every soldier learned to 100% proficiency. Can you imagine being on a battlefield with an enemy approaching and not being able to load your weapon? — thinking something like, gee, I wished I’d paid more attention in class that day. Obviously, this will not do. There can be no A, B, C, D, F levels of performance — only As.

The miliary created a systematic model of course design called the Instructional Design Model. This model consists of a series of steps for designing courses that ensures a 100% level of proficiency. This model is used extensively in the design of training within business and industry today. The model has these basic steps.

 

1. 1. State the goal

1. 1. Analyze the audience

1. 1. Write the objectives to achieve the goal

1. 1. Assess the learning of the objectives

State the Goal: Why state a goal? Isn’t the goal of learning just to be exposed to broad knowledge in a subject area? This may be true for children but not for adults. For example, if the course will be on digital printing, the goal statement should be what the adults want to achieve from this course — most likely they need to learn how to construct a product they will use in their jobs. They won’t be particularly interested in learning the history of digital printing, in what industries is can used for, or even all of its capabilities. The goal would be how this group of adults will use the digital printer.

Analyze the audience: This is a very important step in the process because adults vary much more in their abilities than children. Children all in the same grade will have roughly the same skill levels, but this is not true for adults. You need to consider the intention of the learning and the background knowledge level of the learners. If you are training technicians how to service a digital printer, then it will be much different than training engineers who will program the printer to create products.

Write the objectives to meet the goal: When writing objectives, you will write the step-by-step process by which the goal can be met. It’s a lot like writing the steps of a recipe. How do you precisely make a dish by following the recipe. If the recipe is not written correctly, then you’re going to have a soggy cake. The same is true when teaching adults, they must accurately be able to use the digital printer for their needed purpose, without making any mistakes.

Assess the learning of the objectives: The assessment is really the process of having the learners actually perform the objectives, which would be creating the product or creating the product only with specific guidelines. The intention is to have 100% proficiency. If that isn’t what occurs, then the course should be reviewed and revised to ensure that it does achieve 100% proficiency.

By following an instructional design model, it will make courses truly needed and useful for adults. If we want people to learn throughout their lives, then we need to design learning differently for adults than we do for children.