ADULT LEARNING

Adult Learning



Adult Learning

a) Social factors of learning and education

The term ´intellectual tool´ is generally attributed to Vygotsky (Wertsch, 2003). He noted that nature contributes humans with certain elementary mental functions such as memory, attention and the capacity to make associations based on contiguity. We use these basic functions to make sense of our environment. One of the most important tasks to an educational system is to authorize the young with the intellectual tools of the culture. Children are quite capable of incidental learning based on the natural mental functions. The acquisition of more advanced forms of the tool use, however it must be deliberate and must proceed in the full understanding of the power of the tool, of its generative potential and of the demands made on the user during the period of learning (Davis, N., et al.1997).

Social factors of education

There are some accusations about the lack of connection between the school environment and the real live experience. Formal education confronts children with many demands that are not a regular or frequent characteristic of their everyday experience outside the classroom. The practice of education confronts children with meaningful and necessary discontinuities in their intellectual, social and linguistic experiences (Wood, D., 1995). But according to Bernstein children from ´the middle class´ social background find it easier to accommodate to the school system than ´the working class´ one, because of the language and social norm of the school serve better their comprehension. David Wood (1995) does not agree with Bernstein in this respect he says: “..it is a mistake to think of schooling simply a preserve of one social group. It is not, I suggest, profitably seen as a ´middle-class´ institution, for example. It may well be populated by adults from such social backgrounds, but simply viewing school as a continuation of experiences that are typical of one social group is, I believe, a gross oversimplification. Such a view ignores and belies the many specific demands that are ´special´ to schooling. Put it another way, schools have a culture of their own” (p.213).

At different time and in different part of the world teachers have had the role of being disseminators of literacy, guardians of culture, vicars of morality, architects of the ´good citizen´ and agents of the Gods. In more recent times, schools have been allocated the task of achieving social equality, overcoming material disadvantage and eradicating prejudice. Teachers and instructional designer need to be capable of diagnosing the needs of the individual learner and know how to meet these when discovered (Wood, D., 1995). The technological developments in recent years have equipped teacher and instructional designers with more variety of tools to meet this new era, but the underlying theories of instructions must be an addition to the use of the tools.

ICTs and literacy skills

An early insight into the relationship between the use of ICTs and skills can be obtained by comparing the literacy skills of ICT users versus non-users. From the discussion of computer usage above, those who ...