Creating Courses for Adults: Design for Learning

Chapter TwoEngaged and Involved Learners

Learners bring a huge variety of experiences and expectations to learning, influencing both the educational process and the willingness of the learners to get involved in it. No educator can achieve anything without the participation of learners—one of the central skills of education at any level is ensuring that learners are engaged in the process. Sometimes people reply to this claim by pointing out that children do not choose to be in school so they surely cannot be considered willing participants. This is true to some degree, but the mark of a good teacher is to turn attendance, which can be required, into learning, which cannot. How good teachers do this is one of the great mysteries of education, ...