India has 4 crore students enrolled in higher education, more than
the total population of Canada. But, many employers do not consider a large
number of the graduating students employable. Every year even some of the IITs
also terminate several students for poor performance. Both of these can largely
be remedied by employing a proper combination of pedagogical approaches. To
make the students passing out from various streams better employable by
facilitating effective learning, by
combining suitable modern
approaches of adult learning (andragogy), self directed learning (heutagogy) etc. in addition to the conventional pedagogies
which focus to facilitate child learning. Likewise, a suitable combination of appropriate
transition pedagogies should be employed to better familiarise and engage the
students in learning, and to avoid the ugly state of poor performance,
necessitating termination of students; who get admission only after the fiercest
of the admission-competition in the country. Therefore, the present paper
attempts to give a brief overview of some of the modern approaches capable to
optimize learning through better customized blend of teaching approaches and
help the students smoothly transit in the institutes of higher learning.
A
host of new teaching-learning approaches have evolved in the preceding 2-3
decades to facilitate better learning, especially for adult learning, self
directed learning and peer to peer learning, hitherto unheard and never
employed before to supplement the conventional pedagogies focused at child
learning (peda/pedo/paedo= child). These newer learning facilitating approaches
in addition to the conventional pedagogical approaches are:
(i) andragogy, (ii)
heutagogy, (iii) critical
pedagogy,
(iv) ecopedagogy,
(v)ubuntugogy, (vi) creative pedagogy,
(vii) peeragogy, (viii) hip-hop
critical pedagogy (ix) public pedagogy
(x) transition pedagogy
The
conventional methods and techniques of teaching-learning like lecture method,
discussions slide shows etc. need to be complemented
with a blend of newer approaches, including various newly emerging pedagogical,
andragogical, heutagogical, peeragogical and similar other approaches to
enhance knowledge, skills and
capabilities of graduating students in the today's hypercompetive knowledge-driven economy. Moreover, to remedy
the problem of poor employability of graduating youth, appropriate blending of
pedagogical, ragogical, and heutagogical, peeragogical and other modern
approaches of teaching is necessary in our colleges and universities. This paper
therefore, attempts to elucidate some major approaches or gogies out of the 10
such gogies or approaches in vogue, viz the pedagogy, andragogy and heutagogy.
The various approaches of teaching or gogies which can help in enhancing the
efficacy of teaching and educating are: pedagogy, andragogy, heutagogy, critical
pedagogy, ecopedagogy, ubuntugogy, creative pedagogy, peeragogy, hip-hop
critical pedagogy and public pedagogy. The present day teaching faculty needs
to be familiarized and equipped to employ these neo-advanced teaching
techniques, appropriately with comfort, to make their students or pupils better
employable.
Indeed, enabling
of the students to optimally learn and to prepare them for the forthcoming competitive
era, teaching approaches need to be customized to equip the students with the
knowledge, skills and competencies needed to thrive in such a hypercompetitive
economy. Modern day teachers and educators need to embrace ever newer
methodologies that are more relevant to the exigencies of today's learning (Educators
technology.com 12 Nov 24, 2013). Andragogical and heutagogical approaches,
along with other newer evolving gogies need to complement the conventional
pedagogical approaches. India has a vast number of 32.5 crore students enrolled
in 13.96 lakh schools, almost equal to the total US population, and 3.5 crore
students, almost equal to the total
Canadian population, enrolled with 830 universities and 45000 colleges. But,
such vast mass of our students fare very badly, when compared internationally.
Our school going students have stood second from bottom, in a comparative evaluation
made under the ‘Programme for International Students Assessment’ (PISA), being
conducted among the 15-year old school students of 73 countries. Regarding the
employability- percentage of students, graduating from universities, various
agencies in the country put it at 07 to 45 percent for students of different
streams. To better this score at a faster pace, we have to enrich and
complement our lecture and discussion dominated pedagogy, often leading to
monotony in learning need to be broad based by three of the
major
"gogies" (pedagogy andragogy and heutagogy), supported by the seven
similar gogies like (i) critical pedagogy, (ii) ecopedagogy, (iii) ubuntugogy,
(iv)creative pedagogy (v) peeragogy, (vi) hip-hop critical pedagogy and (vii)
public pedagogy.
The
present paper instead of explaining all the ten "gogies", which have
a spread of a full separate monograph, would focus upon some of the easily
employable and hyper-effective techniques. However, it would yet not be out of context
to explain the three premier 'gogies' (pedagogy, andragogy and heutagogy) to facilitate
better understanding of the conduct of such approaches employed under the guise
of the three gogies.
The
Pedagogical model of instruction was originally developed in the monastic
schools of Europe in the middle Ages. Pedagogy is derived from the Greek word
“Paed’’ or ‘’Pedo” or ‘’Ped’’ meaning child, plus “agogos” meaning leading. As
such, young boys were received into the monasteries and taught by monks
according to a system of structured instruction that required these children to
be obedient, faithful and efficient servers for the church (Knowles 1984).
Hence, now in cosmopolitan secular
culture as well pedagogy has been defined as the art and science of teaching children. It is based on the assumption
that learners need to know, what the teacher teaches them (Hiemstra & Sirco
1990). The result is a teaching and learning situation that actively promotes
dependency on the instructor (Knowles: 1984). But, unlike children, the adults
with their maturity, and experience need to be educates with andragogical
approaches and also through self directed (heutagogical) approaches to the
problem solving, depict least interest and involvement in the pedagogical
approach of instruction, suited more to teach children, resulting into poor
compatibility of the learners to cope with the ever newer real life problems
and challenges, emerging out of the rapidly changing scenario. Androgogy
Andragogy and its Underlying Assumptions
The growth and
development of andragogy as an alternative model of instruction has helped to
remedy this situation and improve the teaching of adults (Hiemstra & Sisco:
1990). According to Julie et. al, andragogy is the art and science of helping adults learn. Malcolm Knowles (1978,
1990) while introducing the concept of adult learning for the first time has
argued that adulthood can be said to have arrived, when people behave in adult
ways and adopt independent approach in viewing things, solving problems and
exploring ways to solve the same. By this criteria a student even at degree
level itself, be treated adult and needs to be educated with andragogical
approach. Burns (1995, P. 233) also opines the same by saying that, at
adulthood people are self directing. Hence, the andragogical approach in
management education has to be more and
more student centered, experience based, problem oriented and collaborative to
facilitate learning instead of merely transmitting the theoretical concepts of
textbooks through lectures, audio visual techniques and other programmed
instructional pedagogy. According to Knowles (1978, 1990) adult learning is
special in a number of ways and is based upon the following assumptions.
· Adult learners bring a great deal of
experience to the learning environment. Educators can use this as a resource.
· Adults expect to have a high degree of
influence on what they are to be educated for, and how they are to be educated.
·
The active participation of
learners should be encouraged in designing and implementing educational
programs.
·
Adults need to be enabled
to see applications for new learning.
·
Adult learners expect to have a high degree of influence on how
learning will be evaluated.
·
Adults expect their responses to be acted upon when asked for
feedback on the progress of the program.
Distinctive
Attributes
Based
on the above assumptions of adult learning, the pedagogical approach of
transmitting knowledge in management education can be distinguished from the
andragogy on following four counts:
(i) Teacher Learner Roles
(ii) Learning
Resources and Techniques
(iii) Motive
(iv) Focus
Theories of adult Learning
Andragogical approach in learning helps to overcome many of the
limitations encountered by lecture and audio-visual presentation based
classroom teaching. Over dependence on this latter approach results in poor learning.
Classroom learning is often dubbed as inefficient method of education.
According to Stewart (2001: p 184) half the people in class often secretly work
on their “real” jobs; half are so relieved not to be doing their real jobs,
they have turned their minds entirely off. Half already know, half the stuff being
taught. Half will never need to know more than half of it. Hence andragogical
approach draws its strength from the following major theories of adult
learning:
1.
Action Learning
2.
Experiential Learning
3.
Project Based Learning
4.
Self Directed Learning
Their relevance
can be better understood from Table 2, an abridged form of the table created by
Mandy McEntyre and Jenn Pahl(2006).
Complementarity of Pedagogy Andragogy and Heutagogy :
Andragogy
is though, a distinctive model for educating adult students of business
studies, but need not be seen as dichotomous with pedagogical approach. Rather,
the two approaches (Pedagogy and andragogy) are to be seen as two ends of a
spectrum to be used in proper blend (Knowles: 1980). The pedagogical and
andragogical techniques that can be appropriately blended for optimum learning
along with heutagogy. They are not mutually exclusive, but complementary to
enhance reciprocal efficacy. The techniques of teaching falling under the three
gogies can be enumerated as under:
Lecture Method
|
Vestibule
School
|
Chapter
Reviews
|
Case
study
|
Discussions
|
Role
Play
|
Group
Discussion (GD) Method
|
Simulations
and Mind Games
|
Fish
Bowl Exercise (A superior variant of GD)
|
In
basket simulation
|
Special
Readings
|
Business/Management
Games
|
Slides
or Power Point Presentation
|
Project
Based Learning
|
Audio
Recordings
|
Facilitating
Experiential Learning
|
Video
Recordings
|
Syndicate
Method
|
Films
on Television or LCDs
|
E-Teaching
Learning
|
Presentations
|
Outward
Bound Learning
|
Participatory
Teaching
|
Sensitivity
Method
|
Conference
|
Problem
Based Learning
|
Heutagogy:
Heutagogy
is basically a learner centric technique and is focused on 'self determined
learning'. Thus, where as the andragogy grew out of the term pedagogy,
heutagogy was created as an offshoot of andragogy. We see that in Hase
and Kenyon’s 2001 article entitled, “From Andragogy to Heutagogy.” Heutagogy maintains
the andragogical learner-centered emphasis, but takes it a step further by also
highlighting the importance of develop the skills necessary to learn on one’s
own. As such, heutagogy is often described as the study of self-determined or
self-directed learning. It is not just about learning content, but also
learning how to learn. It is an especially relevant approach in the
digital age, given the vast amount of content and resources available to anyone
with a device and Internet access. Given so much information, how can
people learn to leverage these resources to engage in lifelong learning?
Where pedagogy and andragogy continue to reflect to some degree upon the role
of the teacher, heutagogy moves beyond this, focusing exclusively on the
learner and this notion of self-directed learning. As explained by Hase and
Kenyon, “the learner decides what and how to learn.”[Bernard Bull: 2013 April 23]
Indian universities and colleges need to assimilate and adopt
appropriate andragogical, heutagogical and other suitable approaches, along
with the conventional pedagogical approaches to improve transmission of
knowledge as well as to upgrade skills and capabilities to overcome the problem
of poor employability of Indian graduates. A recent study of Aspiring Minds (a
New Delhi based employment solutions company) published in India Today in
Education, dated July 13, 2016, alleges that only 7% of India’s engineering
graduates are employable and another study of ASSOCHAM published on July 11,
2016 alleges that 93% of country’s MBA graduates are not employable. The
figures of employability have come down in last 3-5 years. Same is true with
accounting professionals and other graduates. A pedagogical advancement and
optimization (including that of the andragogical and heutagogical as well other
seven gogies) becomes indispensable to enhance learning and improve student capabilities.
So, the modern guru have to equip themselves with the various denova and
emerging gogies of teaching to better engage and turnout well employable
alumini. On top of all a host pedagogies have also evolved for deep ingraining
of ethics and values in the conduct and behavior of the learners. Modern gurus
have to master such pedagogies as well.
References:
Burns, R. 1995 The adult
learner at work Business and Professional Publishing, Sydney
Burns, S. 1995 ‘Rapid changes require enhancement of adult
learning’ HRMonthly June, pp 16-17.
Hiemstra, R., & Sisco, B.
(1990). Individualizing instruction. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Knowles, M.S. (1968). Androgogy, not pedagogy! Adult Leadership,
16, 350-352, 386.
Knowles, M.S. (1975). Self-directed learning. New York:
Association Press.
Knowles, M.S. (1980). The modern practice of adult education
(revised and updated). Chicago: Association Press (originally published in
1970).
Knowles, M. (1984). The adult learner: A neglected species.
Houston: Gulf Publishing.
Knowles, M.S.(1986). Using learning contracts. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass.
Knowles, M., & Asspcoates/
(1984). Andragogy in Action. Applying
modern principles of adult education. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
Knowles, M.(2002). Lifelong
learning: A Dream. Creating the future:
Perspective on Educational Change, v. January. October 10, 2003.
Terry Heick,
Androgogy v/s heutagogoy. Png (PNG Image, 1430*1100 pixels)-
Scale…..http://3.bp.blogpost.com/-MOeldagg.CA/UPKeQRSLLgI/AAAAA..
Stewart Hase and
chris Kenyon (2001), www.pry.gla.ac.uk/~steve/pr/Heutagogy.html
Mandy McEntyre and
Jenn Pahl(2006), Learning Theories Related to Adult Learning.
http//mataconine.mate.net…./Learning_Theories_Related_to_Adult_Learning.docx?
Stewart, T.(2201). Mystified by training? Here are some clues.
Fortune, v. 143,p.184.
Stewart, D.W.(1986a) Adult learning in America: Eduard lindeman
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