Capstone Project on "Teaching Adults in Today's Society"

Capstone Project 25 pages (7106 words) Sources: 25

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Of course, these initiatives need to be funded and managed in the right way by all people involved. As was started to be noted above, the training and development of people for the sector is a huge part of making any plan work. However, it takes funding from the government for an economic realm that is still in its infancy (Wagner, 2013).

Traditionally, women have not taken to computer and the associated learning or careers like men have over the years. This is a subject that was touched upon by Chang et al. (2012). The study makes a reference to a "digital divide" that exists in the research. They noted that "adult women have generally been found to be the weakest group when compared to others." They react to this by saying that there is a need to provided them with computer literacy training and otherwise give them opportunities to learn with computers. To prove this is not an aberration found in the United States alone, they did such an assessment on a total of fifty-five countries. With the exception of Cuba, men always surged ahead of women and the gap was quite often more than five percent in each country. The gap gets even wider when talking about women that are in the age range of fifty-five to seventy-four. In this demographic, the gap between men and women usually goes past ten percent, if not well past ten percent. To address this, there is a strategy cited that involves "expanding or sustaining a positive, anxiety-free attitude or value structure about computers." This is considered "pivotal for coputer literacy." A related but quite different finding in this study was that some people's assertions about educational level being positive correlated with computer literacy is actually quite wrong and the gap between men and women is one of the main reasons why. Of course, professional women are more likely than housewives to use computers in a concerted and consistent fashion but housewives can learn to embrace and use computers as well, according to this study (Chang, Shieh, Liu & Yu, 2012).

When it comes to barriers and policy issues relating to E-Learning, the bar that must be cleared is much higher in areas like Taiwan. This study starts off by stating that the work quality of public servants directly affects a country's administrative performance, and the Taiwan government has recently invested a considerable amount of funds in constructing e-government learning platforms and developing digital courses to provide all public servants with sufficient on-the-job training and enhance the quality of human resources" (Chung, Lee & Liu, 2014). However, getting everyone on board with that subject and paradigm can be difficult. The same study notes that "the results presented here show that Barrier Factors and Policy Factors strongly influence the willingness of public servants to use e-learning systems, and these factors explain more than 80% of the variance in users' behavioral intention (Chung, Lee & Liu, 2014). It is noted that the last ten years (relative to the study) were revolutionary and widely changing of the learning landscape but that the translation of these changes into real-world situations and work performance frameworks was terrible inconsistent in some instances. The study compares e-learning methods and efficacy at actual colleges and schools (for young adults and children, respectively) as compared to the workforce in both the public and private sectors (Chung, Lee & Liu, 2014). Another study focused on Taiwan as well and it was written by Hsiu-Ying, Gwo-Guang and Shih-Hwa (2014) and they also pointed to the barriers that existed in placing e-learning into effect in China. Their perspective was different in that they actually pointed to an American source to make their point. Specifically, they pointed to the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD). That society notes that e-learning encompasses a wide range of applications and processes, such as web-based learning, comuter-based learning, virtual classrooms and digital collaboration as well as the transmission of curriculum content through the Internet, LAN/WAN, audio tapes and videotapes, satellite broadcasts, interactive TV, and CD-ROM (Hsiu-Ying, Gwo-Guang & Shih-Hwa, 2014)

When it comes to older adults and their general learning opportunities and methods as they age, the work of du Plessis, Anstey and Schlumpp sheds some light on what could or should be done to help those older learners. Indeed, they note "demographic trends indicate that older adults live longer and maintain active lifestyles." Quite often, those people are educated and they are more than willing to engage in lifelong learning of one form or another as their life wears on. Sure, there are those that suffer from what is known as age-related decline and diseases/disorders that render the same overall result. In particular, this study focus on the learning of older adults in the country of Australia. The study notes that teaching older adults actually has to be done differently because their cognitive makeup and reactions are different from those of younger learners and people. For example, they state that "older adults show different patterns of functional activation during cognitive tests" (du Plessis, Anstey & Schlumpp, 2011). Different just means that…different. It does not mean slower. For example, when undergoing fMRI and PET scans, there is clear evidence that young adults have neural activation in the left prefrontal area when conducting verbal working memory tasks. On those same tests, older adults show activation in the left and right prefrontal area…not just the left. It is also noted that there are sensory changes in older adults as they age as compared to what younger people typically use and are used to (du Plessis, Anstey & Schlumpp, 2011).

Another study covered in this literature review also covered the memory and mind function of older adults. This new study found that the use of mnemonics when teaching older adults was fairly effective in helping them learn and retain information. Of course, the goals that are to be achieved with teaching older people as it relates to memory are difference and of a different scope than training that occurs with younger adults or children. As stated by Bottiroli, "the broader goals of memory training for older adults is to foster age-related maintenance of function and to improve their memory functioning in everyday life" (Bottiroli et al., 2013). Of course, younger adults have lesser need for such training as their faculties are much stronger, whether or not they actually use them (Bottiroli et al., 2013).

There are obviously and wide-ranging implications for training and learning in the corporate sector. One study and article on the subject dives quite deep as it includes material about human computer interaction (HCI) and information and communication technologies (ICT). Even with the general pattern away from ground-based learning and towards online learning, there are real and present negative attitudes towards online learning from the general public, at least in Australia. The article takes a step back and notes that online learning in some form has actually been around for half a century. Indeed, the University of Illinois had a program in the 1960's that was known as PLATO. This was short for Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations. Fast forward to the present day and this study is like one of the prior studies mentioned (the one about Taiwan). This study focuses on the adoption of online training in Australia in a modern context. Rather than focus on the public sector like the Taiwan study did, the Australia study focused on the private sector. Similar research and initiatives have been or are going on in areas like the United Kingdom (UK) and Canada. Western countries are a big area of focus as many of them are aging in terms of overall demographics and their overall age structures (McKay & Vilela, 2011). There has also been a focus on Australians in a rural setting because they have learning and leadership implications to deal with as well (Madsen, O'Mullan & Keen-Dyer, 2014).

Another article focused on word teaching as it relates to both dense and non-dense words. They study states at the top that "people typically learn new words through exposure." This has led many to think and believe that words are leaned from the input that is heard by the person who is listening. However, others have countered that input is not necessarily needed as there can be learning even with the absence of additional input. Regardless, training typically leads to new retention and new learning while with withdrawal training has a nasty side effect…forgetting of the learning. The study looked at this subject through a study but they used a lot more women than men so the applicability across a population that is almost half and half men and women might be limited for obvious reasons. The women in question were an average of twenty-two years old, so that would make them rather young on the average. Even so, there was promise found with online learning as well as offline learning with absence of additional… READ MORE

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