Welcome to the third episode of Coaching Skills for Leaders! Today's topic: Why teaching adults is different than teaching kids.
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A brief overview of how teaching fits into coaching. We're going to examine a few lessons from The Adult Learner by Malcolm Knowles, Elwood Holton, and Richard Swanson (7th edition).
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:
1) The Need to Know (adults need to know why something is important before learning it)
With kids: because the teacher said so
I share my experience with stats in graduate school
As a coach, you might need to help make this connection for someone
2) The leaner's self concept (they want to be responsible for the progression of their own lives)
Kids are more dependent on the parent or teacher…adults are not
I give an example of a recent client
3) The role of learner's experiences (adults have a lot more of them)
Kids have limited experience
My eye doctor this week did a great job at this
4) Readiness to learn (adults need timing that corresponds with developmental tasks)
Kids: Timing is when the parent or teacher say the timing is
I share a story about the importance of timing in learning a presentation skill
5) Orientation to learning (adults will learn to support what they think will help them in real-life tasks)
Kids: Subject learning – Nina, Pinta, Santa Maria
The leader should be asking – what real-life, practical value does this provide for what I'm about to teach?
6) Motivation (adults want job satisfaction, self-esteem, quality of life)
Kids are motivated by: grades, report card, awards
Book recommendation: Drive by Daniel Pink (autonomy, mastery, shared vision)
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I'd love your feedback on this show as well as any questions or topics you'd like me to address in future shows:
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See you in a week for the next episode!
