Helping Your Mates
Copyright © 1999 Sue Blake
A five minute guide to adult learning principles that can
help you to share your knowledge about BSD effectively.
One of the first things new BSD converts want to try is to share
their knowledge, to help others learn. Some people who are great
mentors are needlessly concerned about their lack of teacher training,
while others blunder on with confidence, leaving broken ambitions in
their wake.
If you are deservedly confident about your BSD
knowledge but a little insecure about your teaching skill, that's
probably an indication that you will do a good job once you get
started. Any person who constantly questions their techniques and views
them through the learner's eyes, rather than their own, has a good head
start.
We're not talking about formal training, just brief incidents of
informal peer support. Nobody wants to plod through the dense theory of
adult learning before doing this. The basic adult learning principles
still apply, though, and even a slight familiarity will make your
efforts more rewarding to all parties. This article pulls out a few of
the core findings to show how they apply to our situation as informal
peer supporters and helpers.
Learning involves three components:
- head
- Broadening one's knowledge -- cognitive learning
- hands
- Developing skills -- psychomotor learning
- heart
- Changing attitudes, values, and perceptions -- affective learning
The best learning experiences will involve all three, even though
they might emphasise one in particular.
Practical skills must be built on knowledge and understanding, or
else they are difficult to learn and likely to be misapplied. But the
links are even stronger than that. There is a limit to how much new
information someone can take in at once without actually trying a task
to apply that information. If knowledge is gained in a detached or
abstract way, it sinks in more slowly and requires greater learning
effort, it is difficult to recognise and retrieve in context later on,
and it is more quickly forgotten.
Ideally, knowledge and skills should be gained together, each
strengthened by the other. When explaining how to complete a task, it
helps to offer a bit of background and pointers to where more
information can be obtained. When conveying knowledge, it helps to
offer as many practical examples as possible at every stage, even
better if they are ones that the learner can actually work through and
use right away.
The third component is often overlooked in informal BSD support.
Every new knowledge or skill, and every interaction with someone who
can help, is likely to influence the affective component of learning.
People bring along their fears from bad experiences in the past with
this task or learning in general, their self-image, and their beliefs
about the tasks involved. All of these are likely to be challenged
during learning.
When the helper doesn't realise that he or she is
impacting on the attitudes, values and perceptions of the learner,
the helper has no way of ensuring that any changes are positive
rather than negative.
Sometimes, in the course of answering a query, people leap at the
opportunity to correct the person's attitudes, values or
perceptions, but accidentally have a negative rather than positive
effect. This may be because the assumptions that have been made about
the learner's motivations are governed more by memories of
childhood schooling than knowledge of adult learning needs.
In the early 1970s Malcolm Knowles contrasted the differences
between the learning of adults and children. Where educational
principles had previously been referred to as "pedagogy", Knowles
popularised the term "andragogy" to refer to the separate "art and
science of helping adults learn".
When working with adults the emphasis shifts away from the act of
teaching and onto the act of learning. Knowles saw the teacher's role
as providing opportunities for the individual to learn, rather than
taking sole responsibility for delivering learning outcomes. The
learner is responsible for the task of learning, with support from the
teacher to choose the best direction, to deal with difficulties
encountered, and to achieve their personal learning goals.
Since then, many have extended or modified Knowles's model to suit a
range of special learning environments and objectives, creating
slightly different models of adult learning, though most of the basic
principles are held in common among all theories.
Knowles's approach is still pretty relevant to the kind of informal
factual and how-to learning we engage in on a daily basis, particularly
when helping new users to become independent and enjoy what they are
doing.
Knowles said that as people mature there are a number of changes in
the way they learn:
- They move from being dependent to becoming more self-directed.
And again, as they become more familiar with a new topic, as
adults they tend to become increasingly self-directed learners in that
particular area.
They need to be involved with the presentation and
evaluation of their training, and to have opportunities to make their own
discoveries with guidance and help available.
Children are more likely to accept the information presented at
face value, while adults need to validate the information based on
their beliefs and experiences.
- They accumulate a wealth of diverse life experiences that they draw
on as resources to assist learning.
They also draw on any negative learning experiences, which can bias
or inhibit future learning, and may have fixed viewpoints.
Children have much less experience to draw on, and can be regarded
as "clean slates".
- They are motivated and ready to learn those subjects
that are relevant to their life situations.
They learn for a reason, usually associated with work or
recreational aspirations. They need to know why they need to learn
something before investing time and effort.
While children rely on others to decide what is important to learn,
adults make that decision for themselves.
- Their learning becomes performance-centred rather than
content-oriented.
They become practical problem solvers who expect to be able to apply
what they learn immediately, rather than simply memorise without
application. Focus tends to be more on the process than the content.
Children are more willing to accept that their learning will be
useful in their long term future.
While some have dismissed these points as sweeping generalisations,
they are useful as a framework for adult learning, to replace
assumptions that we may hold about childhood and school learning.
Knowles's basic assumptions can be revisited and reassessed for the
particular circumstances at hand, giving a simple starting point for
examining our interactions with adult learners.
From understanding the general differences between the learning of
children and adults, we can move on to examine the learning of adults
in more detail. What is most striking is the amount of difference
between adult learners, largely due to their diverse backgrounds and
cultures, many years of accumulated experiences, and different
environments and contexts for learning as an adult. With that in mind,
we can still benefit from a few common generalisations to guide our
interaction with those who are asking for assistance.
When working with other adults, learning should be:
- active
- Try to reduce the amount of "lecture" time and replace it with
tasks within the learner's ability to complete. Plan delivery in terms
of what the learner does, rather than what you do.
"I see and I forget, I hear and I forget, I do and I remember."
For example, when explaining how to install ports, suggest a few
simple installations that can be be tried before considering how to deal
with those that require some configuration, then try them before more
complex ones. A long explanation is tied to practice the
whole way, and the learning becomes active rather than passive.
- meaningful and relevant
- Learning is heavily governed by motivation to learn, and adults
become frustrated easily when they cannot see the "obvious" connections.
For adults to be motivated they must be able to actually see how the
learning is relevant to them. They won't just take your word for it.
Try to relate all new information to what they already know, and refer
to situations where the subject matter can be usefully applied, even
if it seems obvious to you.
For example, when introducing shell scripts to an ex DOS user you
might start by pointing out the major similarities and differences,
then list a few ways that easy scripts can be used to make their everyday
tasks easier, and follow up with actual examples as the technique is
explained.
- holistic
- If you don't keep conscious control of the three components
"head, hands, heart" that we looked at initially, they're likely to get
out of balance and impact on current and future learning.
Try to always tie theory to practice, practice to theory, and the
affective aspects (changing or influencing attitudes, values, and
perceptions) to both practice and theory.
There are many opportunities to point out things
like the importance of security measures, the Unix approach of tying
together many small components that each do one task very well, and
The practical reasons for trying to use online resources before human
resources when dealing with a problem. Take care when working in the
affective domain, because as a group we tend not to deal with it very
well.
Changing one's basic assumptions or general orientation can be
stressful, even painful, and cause temporary strong reactions during the
process. One example you might have seen is the wilful insistence that
"It's my machine, so I can login as root!" while the reasons for
not doing so are being explained and the learner is being enticed into
a radical rethink of how they approach a multi-user system.
When attempting to change a person's orientation, the idea must
be presented in an attractive light, with plenty of "what's in it for
me" value. Show the benefits of change without referring to prior or
current habits (and therefore the learner) as "bad" or "wrong",
otherwise you are likely to build resistance to the very behaviours
you would like to encourage, and to instruction in general.
- careful about first and last impressions
- First and last impressions weigh strongly in the memory and
influence future related activities.
Try to start and finish every
interaction with something pleasant and encouraging, and the whole
experience will feel better. If you want people to heed your advice,
this is the way to make them feel positive about your help, even if
you were forced to break some bad news in the middle. In the beginning
let them know that you respect them and have something worthwhile
to offer, and at the end leave them feeling good about themselves and
their progress.
The facts you present first and last are those most
likely to be remembered. If the explanation is long, start with an
overview and finish with a summary. That will help to tie it all
together as a whole.
- practised and reinforced
- It is possible to read a man page to find out how to complete a
task, go off and do it, and have no idea where to start next time.
Once is not usually enough to make something stick. Practice and
repetition make it sink in so that next time there is little or no
re-learning involved. Reinforcement generally comes as feedback,
either from the person helping or from the system itself, as to the
success of the task performed. Without adequate reinforcement, it is
difficult to benefit from practice.
Most of the time when we do something new, such as set up a web
server, we only do it once. It seems pretty safe to let the memory
fade, because next time round the same reference documents will make
a whole lot more sense. If the person you are helping simply needs to
have a web server up quickly, fair enough. If their general
orientation is as a person learning about the system, you could
suggest repeating the whole procedure a few times, or trying out different
configurations to check understanding.
Some people keep a journal of what they do and discover while
learning. This is a bit like practice, because they must go over and
over the procedure in their mind to get it down as clear sentences.
You're more likely to remember what you did and why if you told
someone else all about it at the time, even if that someone else was
an imaginary reader of a journal, or your pet dog.
- rewarded
- There are many kinds of rewards, and as adults we are more capable
of rewarding ourselves when we see good results from our work. At the
same time, we are our own worst critics, especially when feeling
insecure in an unfamiliar environment. Work at the shell prompt is
insufficiently rewarding in educational terms, with nasty notes appearing
when something goes wrong and only silence to indicate success. It is
difficult for many new learners to find enough rewards to maintain the
confidence to continue, but we can help each other there.
Take every opportunity to note that a job was done well, or to
point out that a wrong decision was at least well reasoned given the lack
of information available to the person at the time. Most of the
time the learner will be left to provide their own rewards, and any praise
you can offer, if genuine, will be very inspiring.
Keep in mind that adults feel insecure and vulnerable when
working in unfamiliar areas of knowledge, and may react strangely in
order to mask or compensate for these feelings, especially in a
public forum. These people usually come good very quickly once they have
received a little valid praise that helps to raise their
self-esteem again.
- given regular, useful feedback
- Considering the medium to long term, a person who is learning BSD
needs to know how they are going. Pats on the back are great
motivators, and most people can't stay motivated without a few of them.
But praise alone is not enough. Sincere objective feedback is necessary
for anyone who wants to make real progress. They need to know not just
"good!", but how good, why it was good, and which areas could improve.
When a mate comes to you for help, consider your role as one of the many
people providing feedback over the long term.
If you've gotten this far through such an unfamiliar topic, you're
doing really well! We have taken a brief look at the components of
learning, the differences between child or school learning and adult
learning, and the basic principles of adult education. We have also
considered some examples of how they can be applied to helping your
mates to learn about BSD more effectively. Since it was mostly
presented lecture-style, you probably found it heavy going, maybe even
boring. If you stopped and considered your own reactions to each point,
you might have found it interesting. If you tried out some of the
ideas, evaluated them, and then came back to view the article again,
you might have remembered a lot of ideas that you can make use of now
and in the future.
Of course you don't have to memorise everything in this article to
do a good job of helping your mates. Hopefully reading it has thrown a
new light on a few aspects of learning, caused you to to question some
of your assumptions, as well as mine, and helped you to think through
your interactions with adult learners and come up with a few ideas of
your own. Come back and read it again whenever you're having trouble
helping someone, or just looking for ideas.
If you do want to follow this topic in more depth, there are many
articles on the web. Try starting your search with:
"adult learning principles" or "principles of adult learning"
"how adults learn" or "helping adults learn"
"andragogy" or "Malcolm Knowles"
