Learning involves the process of adding knowledge, competence, and skills to a student. Adult learning, contrary to child learning, is a practice in which adults undertake sustained and systematically self-educating activities in the quest to gain knowledge, skills, new values, competencies, or attitudes. Therefore, adult learners are not merely overgrown children, and it should be understood that maturity and adulthood bring with it certain unique characteristics that affect the way they learn, the way knowledge is transferred as well as their motivation to learn. Adult learning, for example, deviates from the traditional teaching and learning structures and has been the subject of studies since 1968 when Malcolm Knowles developed the adult learning theory better known as andragogy. Andragogy studies how adult learning differs from that of children. Factors such as autonomy, cognition, goal orientation, practicality, presence of emotional barriers, responsibility for self, having sight of the bigger picture may impact learning in adults in a completely different way compared to a child who lacks autonomy, who is not responsible for self, who lacks practicality and cannot form sight of the bigger picture.
Mentoring and coaching play a critical role in adult learning. Improved outcomes in learning or teaching do not come simply by telling someone. Rather it involves a voluntary decision to coach, mentor, and collaborates with the self-educating adult to ensure they achieve the desired outcomes. The purpose of this research paper is to examine the connection between mentoring, coaching, and collaboration and how they are applicable to adult learning. More specifically, the paper shall provide an outlook of the role of mentorship and coaching in teaching and learning within the context of adult learners, the factors influencing coaching and mentoring, and how cognitions come to play within the context of adult learning. Finally, the research will explore distant/online adult learning and how mentoring, collaboration, and coaching assists in ensuring its efficacy.
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Mentoring
A mentor is a person who provides guidance and support to another less experienced person within a given context, such as work, school, and personal life. Therefore, mentors may provide professional, academic/scholarly, or personal guidance and support to individuals. In education (teaching and learning), the role of a mentor in student achievement cannot be overstated. In addition to teaching, supporting, and motivating the learner, the mentoring ensures that the learners' progress is reviewed and discussed periodically. The mentor's chief focus is on helping the mentee develop their corresponding skills. Additionally, they advise the learner and assist them or reflecting on particular thoughts and beliefs.
Mentoring is both essential and necessary in the teaching process. In teaching, mentoring is especially useful for beginning teachers. Mentors can help beginning teachers develop behaviors and skills essential for the effective execution of their teaching role. These include the following; [1] helping the young educator make a connection between what is taught during their professional development and what they have in their work context in terms of teaching techniques. [2] Next, through the help of mentors, beginning teachers are able to analyze and reflect on their practice, that is, knowing why and when to use certain strategies and not just how. This is best learned by observing their mentors and other teachers in practice, by trial and error in their own classrooms, and also from receiving constructive feedback from their mentors, rather than following the described example in professional training literature. [3] Mentors can help teachers learn how to use students' work to inform practice. For instance, a mentor can teach a teacher how to analyze a student's performance in classroom activities, assignments, and standardized tests, for lesson planning and tailored teaching; 940 a mentor can help educators critically reflect on, process, and integrate into their teaching habits what they learn every day from personal and professional interactions with students (Kutsyuruba & Walker, 2020).
Mentoring is critical to the learning process. From the mentor, the mentee derives immense benefits including but not limited to; creativity, skills, knowledge, assimilation of diverse cultures, the advancement of underrepresented groups, higher earnings, better job performance, development of leadership skills, higher job fulfillment, and satisfaction, better academic outcomes, personal and professional values development, sense of responsibility, constrictive feedback on critical issues, and support to transcend various hostile environments. Mentorship in adult learning has a significant impact on how successful the learner becomes. Adults mentoring adults is not the same as adults mentoring children, and the outcomes are also quite disparate. The success of any mentor-to-mentee relationship is pegged on several factors, including the availability of the mentor, the commitment of the mentee to learn and grow professionally, academically of as a person, clear expectations, availability of trust and mutual respect among others that will be discussed in a later section.
Coaching
It is easy to confuse coaching and mentorship. While the two might have the same fundamental objective, they differ significantly. I like to think that while mentoring is more development, driven coaching is more performance-driven; Mentoring, as opposed to coaching, focuses more on the individual holistically. Coaches, therefore, guide people on how they can improve their performance and hence their overall quality of life (Klinge, 2015). They listen, and observe individual’ needs and customize their coaching approach based on this. They give learners the opportunity to elicit solutions to their problems and strategies on how they can improve, on their won. Coaches believe the learner is naturally innovative and creative enough to realize their full potential.
In the teaching and learning process; coaches Support the learners in their quest to discover the answers within themselves; coaches Assist teachers and learners in the clarification of values; and they work closely with the individuals in co-creating a plan for how to achieve what they really want or need. They act as a sounding board for new and innovative ideas which the client can exploit to attain certain ends. Coaches also provide Support in making life-changing decisions of academic, professional, or personal nature (life coach). In addition to this, they challenge learners to expand their views beyond their perceived limitations and push them to reach their unlimited potential.
Coaches offer Direction to the individuals being coached in a bid to get the best outcomes. They give learners and educator Acknowledgment and recognition when they perform well and Encouragement to help them become better. Next, they provide constructive feedback and areas of improvement, which is vital in the learning and teaching process. They disseminate important Resource information to those being coached to make them more aware of situations they may face in school, in their professional life, and in their personal life as well. From the above discussion, it is clear that the role of coaches and mentors in the teaching and learning process is invaluable.
Circumstances in Which Mentoring and Coaching is Necessary
In education, mentoring and coaching become necessary when the leaders (in this context adult learners) need to acquire certain skills and knowledge; when their behavior lapses and are in need of life skill and behavioral training to bring them back on track, or when they have problems with performance, either at work or at school and need to improve on this performance. Additionally, when the directors or leaders of an organization or institution discover that there are apparent shortcomings with the staff or learners, they may use try out coaching and mentoring as an intervention to overcome the setbacks. Additionally, when educators feel that adult learners lack in self-confidence, self-concept, and self-esteem, mentoring and coaching may prove more effective than other traditional techniques. Individual adult learners may also seek out mentors and coaches if they find themselves in need of a personal, professional, career, or academic development (Spies & Botma, 2015). Institutions may use coaching and mentoring to improve the competence level of their teaching staff in terms of how they integrate their training with the professional practice in an adult learning classroom.
Finally, coaching and mentoring are almost 100% indicated in organizations that have any form of a training program. We are talking about schools, hospitals, business organizations, IT organizations, government organizations, and virtually any institution that develops its employees or students using education and training. Research has shown that people who undertake coaching/ mentoring programs in addition to the training perform better and apply what they learn better than those who undertake training alone. It is much easier and much more effective to apply the concepts taught in an adult learning class if you are coached or mentored on how to go about it. In healthcare, for example, a med student is less likely to perform a simple appendectomy procedure better than a first-year surgical resident working in close proximity to an attending general surgeon.
Cognition and Its Role in Mentoring and Coaching
According to Jensen (2009), Malcolm Knowles outlined the characteristics of adult learning to comprise of adult learners who have the autonomy, that is, independent self-concept, which means they are governed by self; adults who draw on their accumulated experiences to learn; adult learners have learning needs directly impacted by their social status and societal roles and tend to seek only the knowledge that helps them develop along this front; adults are problem-centered individuals, and in contrast to children, they desire apply the knowledge they gain in training immediately; adults have the need to know what they are learning before agreeing to participate in any form of learning. Internal as opposed to external factors motivated adults more to learn (Shashidhara & Ladd, 2018). A close look at these characteristics reveals the crucial role of cognition in adult learning. Cognition is the mental process involved in gaining knowledge, skills, comprehension, and competence. Therefore, the level of and individuals' cognition affects their learning.
Now, with this regard, educators or directors of adult learning programs may choose to involve mentors and coaches with the belief that they may alter negative cognitions about the program and facilitate effective learning and concomitant outcomes. Cognition can, therefore, impact mentoring and coaching efforts negatively or positively. In a positive sense, cognition improves collaborative learning. Collaborative learning refers to a situation where people work together in small groups to help each other learn. Collaborative learning has been shown by multiple research works to have immense benefits both in the classroom and virtual learning: coaches and mentors form an important component of collaborative learning, which is mostly used in adult learning programs.
Mentors help mentees learn and also learn from the experiences themselves. Through mentoring and coaching, the working memory required learning a certain skill, task, activity, attitude, or value is greatly reduced. In other words, the cognitive load is greatly reduced for the adult learner working with a mentor or coach in a collaborative learning program. Cognition also influences coaching and mentoring negatively in the sense that some individuals may perceive coaches and mentors as an unnecessary addition to their learning process. This is especially so when the person has had bad experiences while working with other people in the past.
Application of Mentoring and Collaboration in Adult Distance Learning
Distance education is increasingly becoming popular and widely used across the globe. Since most adults are not able to attend the classroom or on-campus learning sessions due to work, familial responsibilities, and other barriers, distant learning programs provide them with a viable alternative path to gain quality education training, skill training, and professional training, among other important forms of adult education. A 2015 survey by the UNESCO Institute of lifelong learning shows that distance learning was preferred by adult learners because it allows them to combine studies with work (30%), allows them to study at their own convenience and time (21%) and that it allows them to work from home (19%).
Distance learning is not without disadvantages. Chief among these is that educators cannot really make follow-ups on the learner as effectively as they would in the traditional classroom setup. Additionally, the quality of learning outcomes is comparatively lower than that of classroom learning; most distant learners view this type of learning as some sort of vacation. There is also a concern of boredom and limited interaction with other learners, which, in essence, may improve academic learning attainment. To overcome these barriers, educators collaborate with mentors and coaches to act as the on-the-ground eyes to make follow-ups on the learner and ensure their commitment to the learning objective. a mentor will give feedback on behalf of the educator, monitor the progress of the learner, and essentially increase the motivation of the learner (Denny, 2016). By collaborating with mentors and coaches, educators, and teaching institutions improve the quality of learning as well as the outcomes.
In conclusion, the benefits of mentoring and coaching for adult learners are abundant. Through collaboration, educators are able to reap these benefits for both classroom and distant learners. Both the mentors and mentees learn to gain a lot and lose nothing by engaging in sustainable relationships. There is also much to gain for the institutions engaging mentors to develop the skills, knowledge, and values of their learners or adult staff alike.
References
Denny, M. D. A. (2016). Mentoring adult learners: Implications for Cooperative Extension as a learning organization. Journal of Extension , 54 (3).
Jensen, A. L. (2009). Principles of adult learning: The learning process. Revue scientifique et technique , 28 (2), 831.
Klinge, C. M. (2015). A conceptual framework for mentoring in a learning organization. Adult learning , 26 (4), 160-166.
Kutsyuruba, B., & Walker, K. D. (2020). The Role of School Administrators in the Induction and Mentoring of Early Career Teachers. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education .
Shashidhara, Y. N., & Ladd, E. (2018). Team based learning an active teaching and learning pedagogy: A narrative literature review. Indian Journal of Public Health Research & Development , 9 (10), 242-248.
Spies, C., &Botma, Y. (2015). Adult learning: What nurse educators need to know about mature students. curationis , 38 (2), 1-7.
