My Reflection Paper

Rebecca Ralph
COM/520
Instructor: Michael Minaudo
September 22, 2014

Adult education in recent events has been a trend in society. Todays society there are
more adults than there are children and with that comes a generation that is more educated than
the generation that is following. This growing trend of adult education is the sole reason why I
want to be an adult educator. To give a background of myself, I graduated from the University of
New Mexico with a double major in political science and history. I am very passionate about
history and would want to teach it sometime at a community college and then perhaps at a
University as a professor. I want to work towards my PhD in history and spend the rest of my
career researching in the field of history.
Previously, I had gone to the University of Phoenix working on my masters in Secondary
Education wanting to teach high school level students. However, as I was setting up lesson
plans, I found myself wanting to do lectures mostly. I treated my lesson plans as if I was
teaching adults rather than high school students, let alone, middle school students. I felt like
teaching high school was not what I really wanted to do. Rather, I wanted to teach college level
because the focus is not so much on me as the instructor. Instead the focus is on the adult learner
furthering their knowledge in the field of history if he or she wants to go further and learn more
about the subject. I had many professors that have inspire me to want to research and study more
about history and I want to be that professor who will inspire my adult learners to pursue the
field of history.
How will I go about being the professor that I was inspired to be as an undergraduate? I
found it interesting when I read about the Socratic Method to teaching adults. The Socratic
Method in adult education involves the use of systematic questions, inductive thinking, and the
formulation of general definitions (Taylor 44). This method was used in a study on law
students; however, it can very easily be used on students in history courses. The way in which I

will use this method in my classroom is to get my adult learners to think like historians. To think
like an historian is to read primary sources (sources written at the time) and dig deep and allow
the writer to speak to the student. The student then analyzes the document and begins
interpreting what the author is trying to say. The student becomes the secondary source. I will
also ask questions about events of the past and have my students carry a conversation about the
topic. When it comes to exams and assignments, I want my students to dig deep into why the
particular event discussed is significant to the overall theme of the course. This method will
begin to discipline the adult learner and have the realization that history is a very important
subject. Without a firm knowledge of history, one can ultimately repeat it.
Of course, I will need to keep FERPA and ADA in mind. FERPA is Family Educational
Rights and Privacy Act and ADA is Americans with Disabilities Act. These two mandates are
especially important for adult educators and something I need to keep in mind as well. I need to
realize that although I am teaching adults rather than children, my students have rights to
privacy. I cannot go to other students and tell them that Student A did better than Student B on a
writing assignment and then give the actual grade difference. This violates Student A and Bs
right to privacy. I must protect my students privacy and be very careful when it comes to
sharing confidential information. The same goes with the federal mandate ADA. Not every
student I will have will learn at the same pace as everyone else. Some students have a learning
disability and that includes adults as well. Most universities that I know of have a department
called the Accessibility Services that help students who have disabilities. I can refer them to this
department when I see that they are struggling in my class. At the same time, I will keep
confidential information to myself as to not violate FERPA.

The skills and experiences that I possess that would make me suited for this profession is
that I already am an adult educator/trainer. I am a supervisor and I trained new hires all the time
who work in my department at my current profession. This prepares me when I teach adults in
the classroom. Ive learned and experienced how adults learn and I can apply what Ive learned
as a supervisor when I teach adults. Although I may not be a history professor currently, I know
I am suited for this profession because my supervising experiences have prepared me for the
adult education field.

References
Taylor, B., & Kroth, M. (2009). A single conversation with a wise man is better than ten years of
study: A model for testing methodologies for pedagogy or andragogy. Journal of the
Scholarship of Teaching & Learning, 9(2), 42-56.