How can andragogy help our work with growing cohort of retirees as learners AND AS RESOURCES? In 2012 and beyond?

What can we learn from/about andragogy to guide our work with the rapidly growing cohort of retirees in 2012 and beyond?  See "Recent Retirees as Resources to Faculty, Staff, Students" Open Mic, Virtual Brown Bag Lunch Discussion;  Preparation for TLT Group’s 1st Winter Symposium, Feb, 2012.

Friday, Dec. 16, 2011 at 1:00 pm ET - free to all.   Host, Steve Gilbert, TLT Group - excerpts below.

Following excerpts from Wikipedia

"Malcolm Knowles.... asserted that andragogy (Greek: 'man-leading') should be distinguished from the more commonly used pedagogy (Greek: 'child-leading'). ...  Knowles himself changed his position on whether andragogy really applied only to adults and came to believe that 'pedagogy-andragogy represents a continuum ranging from teacher-directed to student-directed learning and that both approaches are appropriate with children and adults, depending on the situation.' [4][5] 

...
Knowles' theory can be stated with six assumptions related to motivation of adult learning:[1][2]

1. Adults need to know the reason for learning something (Need to Know)
2. Experience (including error) provides the basis for learning activities (Foundation).
3. Adults need to be responsible for their decisions on education; involvement in the planning and evaluation of their instruction (Self-concept).
4. Adults are most interested in learning subjects having immediate relevance to their work and/or personal lives (Readiness).
5. Adult learning is problem-centered rather than content-oriented (Orientation).
6. Adults respond better to internal versus external motivators (Motivation)."

Above excerpts from:  Andragogy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Following from tlt.gs/retireesVBBL
The number and qualifications of recent and projected retirees offer new challenges and new opportunities for higher education (and for the rest of society).  This rapidly growing cohort can both complicate the next crises and provide new resources for addressing them.   Retirees can be

• a vital resource to faculty, staff, and students at institutions – as mentors, advisors, consultants, shepherds.

• a growing population of nontraditional students with new needs and diverse backgrounds.

CRISIS LURCH CRISIS LURCH stability CRISIS LURCH CRISIS LURCH  stability CRISIS LURCH CRISIS LURCHFor the foreseeable future,

colleges and universities must expect to achieve no more than brief interludes of peaceful stability as they strive to balance the forces of accelerating unpredictable changes in resources, constituencies, and expectations.  Including but not limited to:  information technology, financial resources, educational needs, public trust, the nature of scholarship, and competing views of the appropriate missions of individual institutions and higher education in general.
“Education can provide the excuse and the means for transforming society...for better or worse.“Information technology can provide the excuse and the means for transforming education...for better or worse.”“Retirees can provide the excuse and the means for finding new ways to live comfortably and constructively with transformation.”

IMAGE selected by Steven W. Gilbert 20111216

Photo of 1st pages from "The oldest document using the term "Andragogik": Kapp, Alexander (1833): Platon's Erziehungslehre, als Pädagogik für die Einzelnen und als Staatspädagogik. Leipzig." 29 July 2011, JostReisch

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Kapp-andra-2Seiten.jpg

By JostReisch (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (<span><a class="smarterwiki-linkify" href="http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0">www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0</a></span>)], via Wikimedia Commons

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