Designing Instructional Articles in Online Courses for Adult Learnersby
Introduction  Aspiring teachers are taught the elements of pedagogy, originally the art and science of teaching children. Many aspects of teaching adults, however, are fundamentally different than those employed in teaching children. In order to acknowledge these differences, a new word — andragogy — gained currency in the late 20th century. This article highlights the important principles in teaching adults and suggests teaching strategies to support these principles in online courses for higher education and corporate learning programs. In addition to describing these principles, we also demonstrate many of them to you! By engaging you, the reader, as we recommend that you engage your learners, we believe that you will understand our recommendations more fully and that you will be better prepared and more motivated to apply them. Decide for yourself by comparing this version of the article to our formal publication in the December 2004/January 2005 issue of Innovate. At the end of the article is a link to a discussion group where you can discuss your reactions with us and with other readers.
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