EU Project TAU's Seminar 2 material - Part 1 Contemporary methods and forms of work with adult learner: Learning with technology

1. Project number: NPAD-2017/10097 TAU project
Seminar 2 Material [Part 1]
Learning with technology
Contemporary methods and forms
of work with adult learner

2. Document details
Country: Sweden
Company: Folkuniversitetet Kristianstad
Elaborated by: Abdullah Badawi & Åsa Kajsdotter

3. Seminar details
Seminar date Feb 2018
Partners present
Åsa Kajsdotter – SE
Åsa Hedlin Olsson - SE
Yulia Bazyukina - FI
Marja-Liisa Helenius - FI
Inês Messias - FI
Veronica Gelfgren - FI
Responsible All partner countries. Activity to be held by each partner in their institution for its
participants.
Result Participants will improve their educational and management competence.

4. Topics addressed
1 Using new technology for
adult learning
2 Lifelong learning

5. Topic 1
Using new technology for adult learning

6. Adult learners, due to their specific time, commitments and priorities differences make teaching for
them even more unique, specially when using new technology.
According to Schwartz (2015) the adult learner has 5 specific characteristics:
1. Is selective
• They only learn what is
meaningful for them.
(Rubenson, 2011, p. 49).
2.Is self-directed
• Is self-directed. They take
responsibility for their own
learning. They identify their
own neads, set their own
goals, choose how to learn,
gather materials and
evaluate their own progress
(Rubenson, 2011, p. 53).
3. Is anxious
• Have been away from formal
school for many years, and
may have had negative
experiences, sometimes
letting them anxious and
with low self-esteem
regarding academic skills
(Rubenson, 2011, p. 53).
4. Is experienced
• Have previous years of
knowledge and experience
and expect to be treated as
adults. (Jarvis, 2004, p. 144).
5. Is problem-centered
• Have a problem-centered
approach to learning, being
interested only in content
that has direct and
immediate application in
their lives.

7. As such, and according to Keillor and Littlefield (2012)
the best way to promote adult’s readiness to learn is by:
1. Creating a safe,
welcoming learning
environment
2. Creating a culture
of empathy, respect,
approachability,
authenticity
3. Collaborating on
the diagnosis of
learning needs
4. Collaborating on
developing learning
objectives and in
instructional planning
5. Ensuring the
practicality of all
learning activities

8. According to Karge et al. (2011) active learning may be one solution to provide students with opportunities to
apply their own background knowledge or prior experience. And online environments make optimal
environments, as they possibilitate preparing different paths regarding different learning styles, time and pace
of learning (LeNoue et al., 2011), they can be flexible to accommodate each learners’ characteristics, and
actually promotes active and proactive roles. The teacher only needs to prepare the tools and the content to
the tools in the correct way, in order for these to be the perfect environment for adult learners. Never forgetting
that a critical part of online course design must include Online Discussion groups, hence, potentially, OSN
tools, to promote highly collaborative, integrative, self-reflective and application-centered structured discussions
(Ke & Xie, 2009).

9. Topic 2
Lifelong learning

10. We can define lifelong learning as being all learning activity undertaken
throughout life, whether formal, informal, non-formal or natural; and with
the aim of improving knowledge, skills and competences, within a personal,
civic, social and/or employment-related perspective (Harvey, 2004; in
Loureiro, Messias and Barbas, 2012).

11. We have incorporated technology in our daily lives, we use it for the most basic
basic tasks, most of us have cell phones, tablets, computers, smart TVs, even our kitchen
appliances are now becoming smart! But most adults uses technology by routine.
At work we use emails, we write texts, at home we use social networks to stay in touch
with family and friends, we use phones to take pictures, and most of us probably register
their whole lives in social media.
However we seem to not be using all of this to learn. These digital skills we are learning are
nowadays necessary as students and as teachers, specially for lifelong learning.

12. These tools as full of learning potential, however most of us
choose not to use them to learn.
As Thorpe (2005) says: “the promise of the new media is just that a promise
or potential that can only be realised through skilled and creative design and
teaching, on the part of both the local tutor and the course team. (...) lack of
success in use of ICT may result as much from cultural differences in how
people expect to learn, as from any feature of the new media themselves.”

13. There are many ways to support lifelong learning in practice:
❖ participation in workshops
❖ training days
❖ training and informal learning opportunities
❖ language cafes for language learning
❖ self-learning applications and programs.

14. In 2017 the European Commission have published a working document to
create an European Reference Framework of Key Competencies for
Lifelong Learning, were they hilight 8 key competences:
1. Communication in the
mother tongue;
2. Communication in
foreign languages;
3. Mathematical
competence and basic
competences in science
and technology,
4. Digital competence;
5. Learning to learn;
6. Social and civic
competences;
7. Sense of initiative and
entrepreneurship;
8. Cultural awareness
and expression.