According to Merriam-Webster, andragogy is the art or science of teaching adults. So how can this theory help us as academic librarians—primarily since conversation around academic library instruction mainly revolves around pedagogical approaches? In this blog post, I hope to highlight the takeaways from Dr. Nicole Cooke’s article “Becoming an Andragogical Librarian: Using Library Instruction as a Tool to Combat Library Anxiety and Empower Adult Learners.” Hopefully, this will start the conversation about the importance of keeping adult learners in mind during our instruction sessions.
What Is Andragogy?
Cooke discussed Malcolm Knowles, who brought attention and awareness to andragogy. The five tenets that Knowles discussed were:
- Adult learners are self-directed.
- They possess life experience that informs their learning.
- They possess a desire to actively participate in the learning process.
- Their learning needs to be relevant to their lives.
- They are highly motivated to learn.
Many adults are going back to college or university for a variety of reasons, and that comes with it an opportunity to share with them the reason why they need the library’s resources and how they can utilize those resources. Also, many incoming students have a varied experience with utilizing the library space, and not everyone is coming into college with the same level of knowledge or understanding of how they can access resources. Therefore, andragogy can help with information literacy and hopefully lessen students’ anxiety with accessing information in person or online. It is crucial to understand your students before engaging with them. This can be difficult with a one-shot institution session; however, letting them know they can contact the library after is important to their success.
One tip is to give the students a pre-survey before your class or at the beginning of your class. One of the questions that I ask is, “How do you utilize the library?” Once I know this, I can decide how to continue with my instruction session. How are you incorporating these five tenets into your instruction?
Adult Learners & Their Needs
The fourth tenet, “Their learning needs to be relevant to their lives,” is so important to understand. Adult learners want to know the why, like why is this important to my life? I know that many faculty understand this in graduate courses because, most of the time, their projects are centered around a community concern or job issue, etc., and the students have to do research on how they can make it better. Therefore, using research topics that are grounded in current and relevant topics is essential. In addition, using the adult learners’ research topic as an example can take your instruction session a step further.
Many of our adult learners are taking online classes, another medium that academic librarians utilize. Online learning can create another barrier for students, so Cooke wrote that students could withdraw emotionally and physically during their time in school if they do not overcome these barriers (p. 213). How can we remove these barriers and ease their anxieties?
How Can Andragogy Help Your Instruction Style?
Cooke urges librarians to utilize andragogy with other theories and instruction frameworks. Andragogy sheds light on adult learners and their needs, which is important so that this vital population can inform our sessions with students we engage with regularly. Cooke highlights that, as librarians, we are not just information providers but learning facilitators. Also, we need to be aware that there are different types of adult learners: “Re-entry students, graduate students, and distance learners have many similarities, but the instructional approach for each group can vary.” Cooke writes that re-entry students are seeking education for a variety of reasons, and many of them lack technological skills. And since there has been some time between the last time that they were in college or university, many things have changed, so being aware of this as a library instructor is essential. Graduate students might be aware of the library; however, we can not be sure they know how to utilize its resources. Lastly, distance learners come from many different geographical places and backgrounds, so Cooke suggests that we have many different ways that they can contact library assistance. Therefore, students can reach us in many ways like by text, chat, email, phone, appointment, social media, or in person.
Cooke wrote that Darkenwald’s definition of adult learners is not defined by age, “…rather they are individuals who have ‘terminated continuous formal education and [have] assumed the roles characteristic of adult status in society.’” This definition helps create a framework around how we engage with our students, especially the “non-traditional student” in my opinion. Many of our students are nontraditional, especially since there are so many inequities in our formal education systems, including the realities that the digital divide has created in our society.
Questions to Consider:
- What is the instructional theory that you utilize?
- How can you incorporate that theory or theories into andragogy?
- Cooke wrote about Vella’s three educational virtues that help “…create a conducive and holistic learning environment: praxis, immediacy, and engagement.”
- How are you engaging with your students?
- Are you creating a space for students to see and understand the usefulness of their learning experience?
- How are students contributing to their learning experience?
- How are they interacting with the content?
- Are you providing your students an opportunity to reflect on what they learned? Reflective questions can be incorporated into your assessment of the class.
- How are you assessing your instruction sessions?
Hopefully, you can find value in Dr. Cooke’s article as I did and will continue on the path of utilizing this theory and other theories and frameworks to engage with our adult learners in ways that will help and support them.
Learn how Information Literacy – Core uses innovative technology and proven pedagogy to build essential information literacy and critical-thinking skills that will help students thrive in their academic careers and beyond.
Resources
- 5 Instructional Strategies to Keep Students Engaged in Virtual Classrooms: Infographic
- Keeping Up With… Andragogy by Joi Jackson
- Pedandragogy: A way forward to self-engaged learning by Selwyn Samaroo, Eleanor Cooper, Tim Green
- Andragogy and Engagement in Online Learning: Tenets and Solutions by Barry Chametzky
- Engaging the Adult Learner: Creating Effective Library Instruction by Helen E. Gold
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