Learning and Change in the Adult Years

Book excerpt: Does the capacity to learn increase or decrease over time? How does the sense of self and identity change over the adult years? What are the educational implications of that change? And how can teachers acknowledge the experience their adult students bring to the classroom? In this book, Mark C. Tennant and Philip Pogson draw on the field of developmental psychology to provide new insights into the critical connections between experience and learning in all areas of adult education and training. Integrating findings from both adult developmental psychology and adult teaching and learning, the authors examine how experience generates developmental change. They look at how the relationship between self and others changes across the lifespan and, in turn, affects the teacher-learner relationship. And they describe the processes that promote separateness, indepAndence, interdepAndence, and autonomy in adult learners.Learning and Change in the Adult Years thoroughly explores the role of development in adult learning, the investment of 'self' in learning, and the link between social development and personal development to give teachers and trainers both the concepts and tools for promoting autonomy and self-direction in learners. MARK TENNANT is dean of faculty and professor of adult education in the Faculty of Education, University of Technology, Sydney. He has published numerous articles in international journals on the theme of lifespan development and learning. His book Psychology and Adult Learning won the 1990 Cyril Houle Award for outstanding literature in adult education. PHILIP POGSON is staff development manager at the University of Sydney, Australia. He has held a number of positions in education and training at both the university level and in vocational training for the long term disadvantaged unemployed.