Pedagogy and Andragogy – Eduardo Carrillo

Introduction

Hello there. In this presentation we are going to take a quick look at pedagogy and andragogy as part of the process where you are developing your views on how adults learn English.

It is quite valuable to take a general look at these two theories given they represent the core foundation that everything is built upon.

We will not be diving in deep. Pedagogy alone is a very ample field and entire study programs are dedicated to only this. Our intention here is to only take a broad look at what pedagogy and andragogy are with the distinct purpose to enrich your views on language learning and teaching.

Alright, then. Let’s get to it.

Education

We start with a broad understanding of education. So, the questions must be postulated: What is education?

We can understand that:

education is concerned with
knowing about things as well as changing ourselves and the world we live in.

To do this,

education requires the learning of
common knowledge, abilities, values, methods and forms of acting through activities set in an organized way and as part of a systemic process related to societal purposes.

In other words, when we talk about education we are referring to the process of shaping human beings so they can better themselves and their immediate environment. There is no magic here. To educate involves working and developing specific abilities, skills, values and so on that are an integral part of the person.
This is a never-ending process so, as a teacher, I need to understand that, in relation to my subject matter and level, where my student is and how far I need to move his or her development. This will be my contribution to this human’s development, or “education”, regarding my subject matter – whatever it may be, not just English.

One thing needs to made very clear. Education is NOT the transmission of information, no matter that it may be facts about a given discipline of information that is deemed essential that the student know. Being aware of or knowing information is not necessarily conducive to improvement and development of the person as a whole. I can know something and not be driven to improve myself to be a better person, even it that “something” in “theory” is life-changing in some way.

I think that a very good example here is grammar. It is very common that an English class can easily turn into a grammar class where the teacher no longer is in the process of educating students but is simply having them do exercises which are transmitting the grammar rule of how to conjugate a verb, structure a sentence, categorize words or some other language rule.

Yet, knowing the grammar rule and actually being good at doing the exercises does not necessarily mean the student will be a good communicator in the target language.

As a teacher you always have to keep in the back of your mind that, in a general sense:

education develops in students
a scientific conception of the world, about society, nature, human beings, thoughts and about themselves, which becomes convictions and core of his or her training.

In Spanish we may ask ourselves or other teachers, ¿Qué le vas a “enseñar” a tus estudiantes?. What is curious about this question is that the ver “enseñar” refers to, literally, “show” students something with the notion that this is enough to educate them on the topic.

However, and this is what I would like for you to take away from this brief look at education, to simply show something to a student, to talk about something is not enough. To believe that it is enough would be to have an extremely reductionist point of view of what constitutes a human being.

A human being has a brain with a myriad of cognitive processes and abilities, an emotional level that generally thrives on motivation and engagement, a social need to belong by sharing common experiences with others among other layers.

Thus, simply “showing” something to your students is not enough.

Enseñar no es educar. Showing is not educating.

This is exactly where pedagogy and andragogy come in. They helps us observe, organize and understand these various layers and dimensions that are critical and constitutional to what makes up a human being. This way we can use this information (rules, guidelines, recommendations) to actually achieve a level of education, be it children, teenagers or adults at any stage of their lives.

Let’s start with pedagogy.

Pedagogy

Definition

A common definition might go as follows:

Pedagogy is the art and science (and maybe even craft) of teaching.

While there is truth to this, it really does not fully explain what pedagogy is. It falls way too short. You may say it is an over simplification of the term.

I highly recommend that you look up the etymology of pedagogy and browse through some of its history. This will surely be very enlightening and will greatly help you better understand why this generic definition is simply not enough.

These are outside the scope of this presentation, so I will not explore them here.

Here is a definition which I like better:

Pedagogy is the process of accompanying learners; caring for and about them, and bringing learning into life.

Notice that by simply adding a few simple terms really opens up the horizon of what pedagogy stands for.

To say that a teacher accompanies a student through the learning process already means there is a social and emotional aspect to it all – it is not just about the information. There must be human emotion and connection at some level for it to make sense.

To talk about caring for students is following up on the previous idea that you, the teacher, are emotionally involved mainly be being empathetic with your students’ learning process and also being compassionate. In other words, you not only feel and understand what you students might be going through but you do something about it. Powerful stuff!

Lastly, to talk about bringing learning into life really makes it clear that “showing” is not enough. It it your duty as the teacher to devise creative ways of taking the information and knowledge in the curriculum to work it with your students so they are not just reading / repeating what might be empty information to them but , instead, they are the ones living and experiencing it.

Of course, there are limitations. For example, if you have a topic on wild animals, you will not take your students into the wilderness to look at wild animals. This can be extremely dangerous. This is where the creativity of the teacher has to kick in. To find a way to close the gap between the student and the topic as much as possible within the constraints one might have.

To do so you need to understand who your students are and where they come from: age, strengths, weaknesses, surroundings and general interests among other things.

This is what pedagogy is all about. Do you see how the initial definition falls way short? it doesn’t do it justice.

I’d like to close this first section with the following idea regarding the notion of bringing learning to life.

Pedagogy tells us that bringing something to life is not just talking enthusiastically about something. There is actually three things you can do to achieve this.

To bring learning to life you integrate:

Animation: involve (potential) new experiences for the student,

Reflection: moments and spaces to explore lived experiences,

Action: make it social to strengthen change and improvement.

Pitfalls

I already briefly talked about how an English learning class can quickly and easily lose its focus and turn into a grammar class. No matter how brilliantly one completes a grammar sheet, it does not grant language proficiency.

From a pedagogical standpoint, this can be understood as treating students like they were one dimensional beings who all learn the same, which would be in a linear and mechanical form.

I think we can agree that this is not the case of all of us.

So, I’d like to briefly expand on this idea.

We go back 200 years to the times of Johann Pestalozzi, the father of modern pedagogy. From this very early stage of what was to become pedagogy, Pestalozzi already clearly stated that learning was an experience that encompassed the entire person and not just a linear and systematic feed of information.

Pestalozzi has shown that there is more to education than attaining prescribed learning outcomes; it is concerned with the whole person, with their physical, mental and psychological development.

Despite the fields of education and psychology not being as studied and developed as we know it today, it was evident that there was an appreciation towards the many layers or dimensions that constitute a person.

What’s more, it was not seen as a characteristic or something static that people have but as something meaningful and that actively played a role in the person’s identity and development as a human being.

Fast forward about 150 years and we are now in the time of Paulo Freire. Among the many important contributions he made to the field of education, Freire talked about the idea of “banking”.

Banking making deposits of knowledge, trying to drill learning into people according to some plan. This quickly turns learners into objects, things to be acted upon rather than people to be related to.

Freire was alive during the rise and broad acceptance of behaviorism, which deals only with the observable. The concept of banking is a direct critique to behaviorism.

As popular as behaviorism was, the implication was that a person’s learning process was seen to some extent as a computer where, by activating and deactivating certain controls (positive and negative conditioning), learning – or molding of a person’s behavior – takes place. Although popular and effective, it saw people in a one dimensional plane.

There was a lot more to learning and human behavior than just conditioning and Freire saw this.

People are not objects; they are others to be related to.

So, in a broad sense, the educational process can inadvertently treat students of all ages as objects that teachers need to fill with information. At least enough information to accurately answer memory-based questionnaires.

Does this really impact students in such a way that it improves their abilities, cognition, emotions and how they relate to their surroundings? I’m quite confident that you will agree with me when I say that getting a perfect score in a memory-based questionnaire does not constitute learning. Not from a pedagogical standpoint.

This, then, is perhaps the principal pitfall that all teachers from all school grades must face and try to avoid at all costs; and this also includes English teachers.

Knowledge does not automatically imply behavioral manifestation – cognitive operations must include emotional content favorable to educational achievements and basic standards

The learning process

As we progress through this exploration of pedagogy we come to the learning process. We normally address this from a student perspective yet, I am going to go a bit against the grain here and talk about it from the teacher’s perspective.

I know that with current trends we don’t do this anymore. But, bear with me as my purpose here is to help you appreciate what your role as a teacher is as an active participant in your students learning process.

So, here are some thoughts on things you need to pay attention to as a teacher.

Student’s stage of development

The first one has to do with the age and stage of development of your students. You have probably already heard the expression that you need to “know your students“. It might seem obvious to know but not so much when dealing with multiple groups in a single day where each one has 20 to 30 students.

This is where evolutionary psychology greatly helps the job of the teacher because it provides a clear outline of what humans go through in each stage of life: physical development, cognitive development and emotional development.

With a basic understanding of evolutionary psychology, you can walk into a classroom of students and quickly get a broad understanding of what their needs are just by identifying their age, gender and overall demeanor. Further exploration can be done through diagnostics tests and activities.

Teaching must be in accordance with the student’s stage of development

The more you know who your students are and their stage of development, the better you will be able to serve them with regard to their learning needs and, in turn, contribute to their progress of being better humans.

From known to the unknown

Another somewhat obvious idea is that when you are organizing the content from your subject matter and doing your lesson plans, you always start from the easy stuff and work your way to the more challenging stuff. It is highly unlikely that you could do this any other way because we are simply built in such a way that to deeply grasp a complex topic, we first need to understand its core principles so we can then establish correlations, break things apart, put them back together and, ultimately, internalize the complex topic.

One should proceed from the specific to the general, from what is easy to the more difficult, from what is known to the unknown.

From a creative standpoint, you can, of course, adjust the narrative of your lesson plan to make the experience as a whole more engaging for your students but you still have to follow a known to unknown sequence.

For example, you might start your class by presenting the complex idea to students and showing them the end result. They may not understand the inner workings of it but they surely will grasp its application. So, the class now becomes a discovery of understanding the inner workings, how it all builds so that at the end, students understand what was initially presented to them.

The class might have started at the end but it quickly went back to the known and took students to the unknown. the difference is that they now know where they need to get to.

The role of instruction

Unlike the obvious nature of the two previous ideas, the role of instruction can be a bit tricky. Not in understanding what it is but more precisely in its application.

The tricky thing about instruction is that there is a fine line between it being a mindless statement that teachers enunciate for students to follow and, on an opposite side, a key that unlocks learning opportunities.

The act of instruction is a tool used for assimilation of knowledge and abilities.

Consider the following:

SITUATION 1

Teacher: Please open your books to page 45. Complete the reading in section 2. Then, answer the questions in section 3.

after everyone completes the exercise.

Teacher: Jenny, what did you answer in questions 1? ... Good.
Teacher: Paul, what did you answer in questions 2? ... Good.

Now, consider this next situation:

SITUATION 2:

The teacher, first, organizes everyone into pairs.

Teacher: Please open your books to page 45. Look at the questions in section 3. Ask and answers these questions with your partners. Don't be afraid to talk about your personal experiences regarding the questions and answers.

after students finish with their interaction.

Teacher: Read the passage in section 2. Then, as you review the questions in section 3, compare the answer from the text with the answer you gave in your partner exchange. How are they similar or different?

Both situations have to do with the same book activity on page 45, however,

what is the potential of learning in situation 1?
what is the potential of learning in situation 2?

There is, of course, a broader context that these situations are a part of and that would surely help paint a more complete picture, yet, despite the limitation we can clearly see that instruction greatly hinders or promotes learning.

The real question is how you, in the role of the teacher, will use instruction to promote learning in your students and what you need to do to achieve this.

Measuring student progress

In order to realize the idea that human development is taking place teacher must have a system of some kind to measure students progress. This means that there should be a general end-point or benchmark, a starting point and the eventual movements towards the end-point.

In other words, there is a learning objective to achieve at the end of the course, a diagnostic that takes place at the beginning and all of the classes and practices that happen in between which should be designed to help the student reach the learning objective.

With the diagnostic and learning objective established, measurement happens all the way through.

Training and development allow describing learning results, skills, values, abilities, competencies and facets in the psychological formations of the personality and are necessary to understand the progress of the personality being educated.

It makes more sense at this moment to go back to the idea of Pitfalls so that it is in the appropriate context.

Measurement of student progress can easily not be about student progress and, instead, center around simply getting a “passing grade“, even though it is a completely arbitrary thing.

From a pedagogical point of view, measuring progress is not just about knowing something, the person as a whole should be a concept that is present at all times: cognitively, emotionally, physically, socially. Here I am only referencing the broad strokes but each dimension is a world of information the teacher needs to weigh in order to accurately determine progress as it were.

It is not just about confirming if little Timmy can repeat back the three phases of the cycle of water. It is also about identifying what he thinks about it? how he feels about it? what actions he takes about it? and how he shares it with others (family and friends)?

All of these human dimensions are not equally important all the time. Keep in mind that learning happens in relation to the developmental stage of the student. What is important to a 5 year old will be different to a 10 year old and so on. It generally becomes more complex with age.

So, the dimensions that conform the human are always present and should always be considered when measuring student progress. It’s just that each one changes its degree of importance with regard to the stage in life the student in in.

Stakeholders

Right about now is a good time to remember that pedagogy is generally understood as referring to children and teenager’s learning process whereas adult learning falls under the view of andragogy. I mention this now because there is a quite tangible difference when it comes to stakeholders.

Stakeholders are the people or institutions who have some kind of an invested interest in the learning process of the student. It can be a direct or indirect investment.

For example, the school and parents of the child/student will be direct stakeholders while a sibling or friend might be an indirect stakeholder. Direct stakeholders should be frequently updated on the progress of the student while indirect stakeholders can be occasionally informed.

It involves educators, family members, students, managers, representatives of the educational institution’s organizations and other members of the community, who are transformed into a process of personal growth, nuanced by a certain planned and oriented nature depending on the objectives set.

Approaches

I’d like to close the section on pedagogy with a brief account of some of the most common approaches we have.

Each one places the role of the teacher and student in a slightly and even very different way as well as value the various dimensions of child-student somewhat differently.

APPROACH	DESCRIPTION
The Traditional Approach	The educator provides information through direct instruction and lecture-based lessons.
Critial Pedagogy	It encourages students to analyze and challenge oppressive structures by being aware of diverse perspectives, societal forces, and power dynamics.
Social Pedagogy	It involves moral education, teaching learners social development and awareness.
Project-based Learning (PBL)	arners utilize theoretical knowledge in real-world situations, filling the gap between theory and practice.
Culturally-responsive Approach	Instructors recognize and understand the cultural and ethnic diversity of their learners as they aim to promote an inclusive learning environment with a culturally-responsive approach.
Inquiry-based Learning Approach	Students develop skills and gain knowledge by asking questions.

Andragogy

I’ve taken quite a lot of time on pedagogy in this two section exposition but that’s fine because there is plenty of overlap between pedagogy and andragogy. The core principals are fundamentally the same; e.i. a human is comprised of several dimensions. What is different is the degree to which these dimensions are developed and the complexity with which they operate.

These two variables greatly impact the educational process.

So, don’t think that there is a strict separation between pedagogy and andragogy. On the contrary, the second is an extension of the first just like adulthood is the consequence of childhood.

Definition

Pedagogy is about children. Andragogy is about adults.
Yet, there is so much more about it as we have so far seen with pedagogy.
Andragogy is no different.

The oversimplified definition of Andragogy is stated as method and practice of teaching adults.

It’s the dictionary definition.

With these sort of things it’s better to look at what experts have to say.

Hanselmann, who was a Swiss psychiatrist, talked about andragogy as “helping adults with the learning process” and, mainly, he saw andragogy as a continuation of pedagogy. The definition might still somewhat simplistic but by the concept of adult learning process, there is much to unpack. It serves as a gateway into what andragogy is.

The University of Bamber in Germany contributed greatly to the study of andragogy. They understood it as the “lifewide learning” of adults, referring not only to formal learning but also informal learning, intentional learning, non intentional learning and even accidental learning. The principal implication here is that they believed that learning happens everywhere and, potentially, at every time.

The biggest take away, then, from most definitions of andragogy is that it is about the learning process adults go through, understanding that theirs is different to a child’s learning process.

What’s curious, though, is that andragogy has not been seen equally around the world. Towards the east of Europe there is much more emphasis on a social andragogy, which refers to collective and collaborative learning geared towards societal change, while towards the western part of the world such as America, the emphasis is on and individualistic andragogy, which focuses on personal growth and self-directed learning thus not intended to change the status quo.

To our benefit, both can be used and applied. It simply depends on the context and characteristics of the group of the adult students.

Knowle’s assumptions and principles

Malcom Knowles is most known for his contribution to andragogy. He contributed a series of assumptions and principles pertaining to adult learning which helped to guide the educational process.

I think it is safe to say that we all understand that adults learn differently to children and teenagers. It is exactly here that Knowles contributes his ideas to clarify just how adults are unique in their own way and, in turn, shed on light so that teachers and academics can accurately target methods and didactics to the needs of adults.

Knowles stated 5 assumptions pertaining to adult learning.

Self-concept: as a person matures his/her self concept moves from one of being dependent personality towards one of being a self-directed human being.
Adult Learner Experience: As a person matures he/she accumulates a growing reservoir of experiences that becomes an increasing resource for learning.
Readiness to learn: as a person matures his/her readiness to learn becomes oriented increasingly to the developmental tasks of his/her social roles.
Orientation to Learning: As a person matures his/her time perspective changes from one of postponed application of knowledge to immediacy of application, and accordingly his/her orientation toward learning shifts from one of subject-centeredness to one of problem centerdness.
Motivation to learn: as a person matures the motivation to learn is internal.

At this point, it is relevant to remember what exactly one means when talking about an assumption. In principle this is something that is generally accepted as a truth yet there is very likely no evidence to support it. It is quite common to make assumptions. We do them all the time by simply observing our surroundings from a far.

This is important because we will be touching on this again in the next section.

In addition to the 5 assumptions, Knowles postules 5 principles of andragogy.

Involved adult learners: Adults need to be involved in the planning and evaluation of their instruction
Adult learners’ experience: experience (including mistakes) provides the basis for the learning activities.
Relevance & impact to learners’ lives: adults are most interested in learning subjects that have immediate relevance and impact to their job or personal life.
Problem-centered: adult learning is problem-centered rather than content-oriented

To this effect, a principle is understood as an underlying truth for a belief system. You may have noticed, then, that there is some correlation between Knowles’ assumptions and principles. It should be expected that this be the case since it demonstrates congruency of the entire framework.

Taken at face value, these statements offer plenty of guidance for teachers. So much so that they continue to hold up to this day and are frequently referenced when talking about andragogy.

Critiques to Knowle’s ideas

No matter the popularity Knowles contributions to andragogy, other experts on the matter have talked about its shortcomings. Keep in mind that the statements are assumptions and principles, ideas that are accepted as truth, and it is exactly on this belief that others have commented on and critiqued Knowles’ contribution.

The most immediate and obvious critique es that Knowles ideas about andragogy lacked empirical data. This is to say that there was no riguroso data collection and analysis that commonly supports any serious theory. Thus, there has been much questioning on why Knowles’ andragogy is referred to as a theory of adult learning when there seems to be no concrete data to back it up.

Another critique, by Sandlin, is that Knowles andragogy “ignored the relationship between the individual and society”. The implication to this is that it presupposes that everyone has the same values and goals no matter the culture they come from. This, of course, is inherently no true to humans given that the surrounding environment may deeply shape perception, experience and values. You don’t need to go too far to prove this. For example, people who live in the south of Mexico have very different customs and values to people living in the north. There are, obviously, similarities given it is the same country the because the environments are different, people in both extremes of the country live differently and come to have different life expectations and slightly different cultures. Thus, their learning process as adults has to be treated with its corresponding differences and similarities.

One final critique that I’d like to mention here is that, according to Finger and Asun, Knowles’ andragogy “does not challenge the status quo“. In other words, the assumptions and principles will lead teachers to encourage development that only strengthens the current habits and practices of adults in the present culture. While there might not be anything apparently wrong with this, it may cause that teachers easily fall into a traditional approach to teaching, omitting activities which may challenge what adult students believe.

Critiques and opposing arguments on models, methods and theories is commonplace and a good thing. It means that experts are working out the minucia and that the ideas remain vibrant and in motion. Most importantly, critiques do no mean that they necessarily cancel what they are critiquing. These are simply opposing views which are a healthy and natural part of evolving ideas and theories.

It is up to practiging teachers to be informed on the matter and decided for themselves if the model, method or theory is pertinent to their current adult students.

A brief comparative

In this final section I’d like to leave you with a comparative table between pedagogy and andragogy, which lists a few of the key criteria of both theories and for each provides a simple statement.

With everything that has been presented here, this comparative table will give you broad ideas that may serve as cues to spark idea avenues that may lead you down interesting rabbit holes on children and adult’s education.

	Pedagogy Children’s learning	Andragogy Adults learning
Dependence	The learned is a dependent personality. Teacher determines what, how and when anything is learned.	Adults are independent. They strive for autonomy and self-direction in learning.
Resources for learning	The learner has few resources – the teacher devises transmission techniques to store knowledge in the learner’s head.	Adults use their own and other’s experience.
Reasons for learning	Learn in order to advance to the next stage.	Adults learn when they experience a need to know or to perform more effectively.
Focus of learning	Learning is subject centered, focusses on prescribed curriculum and planned sequences according to the logic of the subject matter.	Adult learning is task or problem centered.
Motivation	Motivation comes from external sources – usually parents, teachers and a sense of competition.	Motivation stems from internal sources – the increased self-esteem, confidence and recognition that come from successful performance.
Role of the teacher	Designs the learning process, imposes material, is assumed to know best.	Enabler or facilitator, climate of collaboration, respect and openness.

Resources

Abreu-Valdivia, Omar, Pla-López, Ramón, Naranjo-Toro, Miguel, & Rhea-González, Soraya. (2021). La pedagogía como ciencia: su objeto de estudio, categorías, leyes y principios. Información tecnológica, 32(3), 131-140. https://dx.doi.org/10.4067/S0718-07642021000300131
Cloud Assess. (2023, May 10th). What is Pedagogy? approaches and real-life examples. https://cloudassess.com/blog/what-is-pedagogy/
Heick, T. (2015, October 10th). What Is The Difference Between Pedagogy, Andragogy, And Heutagogy? https://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/andragogy/
Pappas,. C. (2013, may 9th). The Adult Learning Theory – Andragogy – of Malcolm Knowles. https://elearningindustry.com/the-adult-learning-theory-andragogy-of-malcolm-knowles
Smith, M. K. (2012, 2021). ‘What is pedagogy?’, The encyclopedia of pedagogy and informal education. https://infed.org/mobi/what-is-pedagogy/
Svein Loeng | Edith Omwami (Reviewing editor) (2018) Various ways of understanding the concept of andragogy, Cogent Education, 5:1, DOI: 10.1080/2331186X.2018.1496643