Andragogy is an adult-focused 'art, craft and science of teaching-and-learning' that helps adults to learn. It short, andragogy is the art and science of helping adults learn contextually and it believes in needs assessed and designed interventions for individual adult or elderly learner (AVETRA 2002, Australia).
An andragogue draws strength from five main pedagogical approaches, namely, constructivist, collaborative, integrative, reflective and inquiry based instructional processes, skills and techniques.
Thus, an andragogue is super-specialized responsive professional who is well-versed with the nature and psychology of elderly people and deliberately creates conducive physical and social learning environments (social pedagogy) that have a positive impact on learning by adults. He or she always does designed and intentional teaching through dialogues and discussions and other interactive approaches. In an andragogically sound instructional method, due respect and acceptance are accorded to the adult learner for his or her knowledge and experience.
Research and theory of andragogy informs the following five major principles of learning by adults: (i) the learner’s motive and need to know and be informed; (ii) current self-concept of the adult learner which is often egoistic and with mental inertia; (iii) prior experience and current habits of the learner; (iv) readiness and motivation to learn; (v) designed orientation towards or readiness towards new learning; and (vi) planning and transaction of learning intervention with diagnosis-treatment-prognosis.approach.
Read carefully the following matrix to understand the four dimensions of andragogy
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