Adult Education as a Guarantee of Future Career Growth and Promotion
Before discussing the benefits and importance of education for adults, let us first define the notion itself. What is adult education? As a rule, adult education implies group training, seminars, and programs intended for professionals of different kinds. It is aimed at enhancing their skills in a certain area. Very often the use of adult education training courses involves simulation of real-life situations related either to customer service or sales increase.
In other words, adult education and training give participants an opportunity to role-play particular situations, get the knowledge and hands-on experience of what they must be done at the working places – the topics of adult education training vary greatly. Therefore, the choice is entirely up to you and depends on your goals. Would you like to max out your public speech or self-presentation skills? Are you looking for a more efficient way to design a marketing strategy?
Courses in adult education immerse professionals into the environment where they can acquire a unique experience. A truly good professional always looks for continuing education for adults. As a rule, adult education and training also have an impact on the development of certain traits of character such as confidence and reliability. Some adult learning and education courses are intended for the development of leadership skills.
The development of adult education is a young culture, but it is becoming more and more popular and widespread. After all, adult education classes are a specialist’s only guarantee that they won’t lose sight of what is happening in the industry. Education for adults is a necessity for someone who strives to achieve more.
The main features of adult education
In adult education, there are some characteristics (adults here are considered as those who have already completed a full course of study and work as professionals) related to challenges faced by adults in their learning. These are the features of training:
- A student can participate in the planning of training, prioritization, the definition of evaluation criteria. And this is a very important point. Before the beginning of classes, it is very important to discuss the goals of the training, the pace of the session, the need to do the home task, the methods of assessment, and so on. All this is necessary to prepare the students for the courses for the learning process.
- The role of the teacher is changing. In fact, there is a widely-spread trend – the teacher is no longer the only source of knowledge, thanks to the development of the digital technologies. Therefore, they abandon the teacher-centered learning model, and actively introduce learner-centered learning to maximize the effect of the material mastering. The older is the student, the more he/she is responsible for the result of own training. The role of the teacher is to help, guide, and correct possible mistakes, but in no way to teach in all possible ways.
- It is necessary to take into account the experience of the student: where, how and what was previously learned. Adults have habits that have been developed over the years of school, college and university education, many of adults have negative experiences, as well as own ideas about how the training should be going, the courses for adults must consider this aspect.
- Features of motivation. A child can be motivated with various things, but an adult motivates himself/herself. Children are happy to study together, or because they like the learning process itself, but this does not work for adults. Either a person will force himself/herself to do something, or nobody can do it. All the claims like this: "I quit something became it was not interested for me" and "I did a little and stopped because I expected more," are often the justification for laziness.
- Wide opportunities for the application of common education and peer assessment. Intercourse is learning organized in such a way that not only an instructor teaches the group, but students themselves teach each other, working in pairs and groups, and possibly communicating with each other outside the courses.
Here is a brief description of the features of adult learning that should be considered in different types of continuing education for adults.
Learning Institutions and Adult Vocational Education in Dubai, the UAE
Since more and more people show interest in continuing education for adults, Dubai, one of the most innovative cities around the globe, provides professionals with such opportunities. Adult continuing education can train specific skills contributing to an individual’s success and self-development. Many modern specialists undergoing adult vocational education need guidance and advice when it comes to sales and conflict management or dealing with complaints. And the Atton Institute located in Dubai is one of the best learning centers in the country. It provides educational programs for adults in areas, connected with business in the UAE.