Adult Learners
When designing online multimedia courses for adult learners, it is important to look at the impact of online education as well as the attitudes the adult learners have about themselves in correlation to the subject matter. Research has found that while adult learners are intrinsically motivated towards learning; learning that is imposed on adults will be ineffective and met with resistance. The content should be designed in a way to accurately assess the needs of the adult student as well as the willingness to participate and the likelihood of success. (Donavant, 2007) Over 30 years ago, Malcolm Knowles developed a model of teaching adults as a separate practice from the teaching of children recognizing that adults having different needs than child learners. He based his model on six assumptions of adult learning: that adults need to know why they are learning something, that they have more self- directed personalities toward learning, that their life experience becomes a valuable resource to them, that the content must be relevant to the adult learners life, the orientation of the learning should be problem centered instead of task centered, and that adults are motivated to learn. (Donavant, 2007) These concepts support an online learning framework that is interactive, collaborate, and constructive. Web 2.0 tools such as wiki’s, blogs, video, and podcast can be integrated into instruction to support adult learners and their unique educational needs. (Donavant, 2007)
For online learning to be effective for the adult learner, it is important that the curriculum objectives are well thought out and that the main focus of the educational experience is the students. It is difficult to achieve this without proper planning on the part of the designer of the instructional module. Distance education plans can be used to give educators involved in online course development a roadmap for their class instruction. Six important factors in creating online instruction to be focused on the needs of the learner are the assessment, guidance, community building, communication, humanizing and evaluation. (Du-Charme-Hansen, Dupin-Bryant, etal n.d.)
