Andragogy

Andragogy is a perspective on humanistic learner-centered curriculum development and enactment that was popularized by Malcolm Knowles within the field of adult education in the 1960s, when adult education as an academic and professional field was still young, and when those involved in this professionalization were seeking to establish adult education as an important arena of study distinct from K12 education. Knowles argued that adults learned differently from children and thus should be taught differently from children, a stance he modified during the course of his career, as he came to accept that all learners benefit from the learner-centered instruction championed by andragogy. As such, andragogy was initially grounded in the perception that the prescriptive curricular models used in K12 settings were inappropriate for adult ...