Ensuring that both formalized education and informal educational experiences be valued reasonably, acknowledging that formalized educational experiences may not measure up to informal, crisis based experiences, is critical to building the knowledge reservoir. Stewart (1987) states that “if a prospective student already knows something as a result of a learning experience; if this is of direct relevance in the educational program for which application is made; if such learning can be appropriately documented – should it not then be recognized, with the student receiving credit for it?” (p.111).

The mindset that education ends at the institutional door and that informal experience is discounted (or even ignored) by the establishment, is one way to maintain power and position, and is very difficult to overcome.

So how do educators help learners to tap into these reservoirs or build additional capacity in them? Understanding how learners are motivated, it is not a purely psychological process, there must be the right environment to encourage learning. Rubenson (1982) states that “to understand participation, theoretical models in at least three areas are necessary: adult education as a societal process, the individual’s psychological conceptual apparatus, and in addition, links between these levels” (p.62).

In relation to providing real experiences from which learners to develop, Driscoll (2005), states that “learning involves solving problems that arise out of conflict-generating dilemmas in everyday situations” and goes onto say that it “suggests  that instruction should supply similarly relevant situations in which students are called upon to resolve dilemmas” (p. 257) . The implication is that for deeper learning to occur, the students need to be able to apply knowledge in complex environment, where the variation of problems is ever-changing.

In my case, I have been working in the public water utility or municipal government sector as a professional engineer for about twenty years. The focus of my work has been on providing clean, safe drinking water to the public, by way of many different activities that are undertaken on a daily basis. I tapped into my experiences and used them to build my knowledge and to demonstrate competency in the application systems analysis methods.

A Systems Description of a Children’s Water Festival

A Water Utility - Drinking Water Complaints Rich Picture Soft Systems Analysis

The learning experience was crafted or deigned to make the most of my experiences in order to deepen concepts while further building relationships between other ideas.

References

Driscoll, M.P. (2005). Radical behaviorism. Psychology of learning for  Instruction (3rd Ed.). Allyn & Bacon.

Rubenson, K. (1982). Adult education research: In quest of a map of the territory. Adult Education, 32(2), 57-74.

Stewart, D. (1987). What adult education means: Discovering and rediscovering the concept ofandragogy. In D. Stewart, Adult learning in America: Eduard Lindeman and his agenda for lifelong education (pp. 103-112). Malabar, Florida: Robert Krieger Publishing.

Competency Categories Exhibited - 

1. Problem Solving, Analysis, & Decision Making

2. Instructional Design & Development

4. Communication & Interpersonal Skills

5. Research