When pedagogy meets andragogy, from Valérie Askins

The coronavirus pandemic has had an impact on everyday life including education. Education professionals had to adapt quickly following the announcement of stay-at-home measures in order to ensure continuity of learning for their pupils. When their premises had to close, schools have reopened online and children have reconnected with their teachers and classmates virtually. My sons attend their school assemblies online and are sent links to websites to consolidate their learning with some home studies. They were already using Google Classroom before lockdown but are now using it to its full potential, in particular to join teachers and peers on-screen with Google Meet.

In essence, children have been catapulted into the world of the Open University distance learning approach, which is tailored to adults. So that begs the question, do children and adults learn in the same way?

The science
Andragogy is the science of teaching adults, and pedagogy is the science of teaching children. In 1984, Malcolm Shepherd Knowles, an American Adult Educator, developed the adult learning theory by highlighting the differences of how adults learn compared to children. He suggested four principles that drive adult learning:

• adults need to be involved in the planning and evaluation of their instruction to keep them engaged and motivated
• practical experience provides the basis for the learning activities
• adults are most interested in learning subjects that have immediate relevance and impact to their job or personal life
• adult learning is problem-centred rather than content-oriented.

As a certified French teacher who teaches both adults and children, I can say that these principles actually also apply to teaching children.

Just like adults, involving children in planning and understanding their learning objectives is the best way to keep them engaged. And they also learn best if they can put things into practice. This is highlighted by the famous pedagogy method developed by Maria Montessori in 1900 in Italy that advocates learning by doing in order to create self-motivated learners. This method is still widely used today in children’s education.

Fine-tuning the approach
Children go through a number of stages of learning. As they mature, their cognitive development involves the capability to process and to retain information and to acquire strategies for remembering, understanding and solving problems. As adults, we use these same capabilities to study and learn.

One of the main differences is that it will not always be obvious to children how learning a specific skill will benefit them in the long run. And where adults can draw on past experiences to enhance their learning, children are more open to new things and are ready to absorb new information. These differences clearly require fine-tuning of the teaching methods.

So, pedagogy and andragogy are not really that different after all. The age of the learner can’t be ignored entirely but overall, the elements that make learning a success apply to both adults and children, the latter simply require more guidance and supervision along the way.