A brief overview of how teaching fits into coaching. We're going to examine a few lessons from The Adult Learner* by Malcolm Knowles.
Pedagogy vs. Andragogy (art of teaching kids vs. self concept of being responsible for ourselves) (Greek: child-leading, man-leading). You can't teach adults the way you teach kids.
Why talk about kids? As coaches, there's the tendency to fall back on what we've seen all our lives and what we remember from school – unfortunately, those same skills don't work with adults.
6 assumptions about andragogy:
- The Need to Know (adults need to know why something is important before learning it)
- The leaner's self concept (they want to be responsible for the progression of their own lives).
- The role of learner's experiences (adults have a lot more of them)
- Readiness to learn (adults need timing that corresponds with developmental tasks)
- Orientation to learning (adults will learn to support what they think will help them in real-life tasks)
- Motivation (adults want job satisfaction, self-esteem, quality of life)
Book recommendation: Drive* by Daniel Pink
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