Last fall I embarked on two educational adventures. I started homeschooling my first grader and I started a certificate program in e-learning instructional design at the University of Washington.

I initially thought that the two endeavors would be very different. My certificate program focused on the foundational skills of instructional design, which included ongoing discussion and application of adult learning theory. Since I was homeschooling a seven year old, I did not anticipate that the course content would be highly relevant. Turns out- I was wrong.

Homeschooling is very different than traditional elementary classroom learning. It is flexible and it is child-led. In my experience, it is actually more like teaching an adult. So I wanted to share how the two experiences aligned.

Malcolm Knowles was famous for his development of Andragogy (the art and science of adult learning). Knowles’ key principles and assumptions about adult learners inspired the examples here:

#1 Adult Learners Are Self-Directed.

Adults benefit from being involved in the planning and evaluation of their instruction. Allowing learners to self-assess and choose their starting point (e.g., with flexible navigation in online courses) provides great opportunities for self-directed learning.

Homeschool provides a similar path for self-directed learning. We had state requirements for subject areas, but complete flexibility in how we met those requirements. For example, my son chose to meet the science & technology requirement by learning computer coding in his first grade year. He helped choose the textbooks and independently or co-designed the projects with his instructor (my husband). He also had flexibility in how he navigated the curriculum (e.g., choosing to go back to Scratch projects after learning Python).

#2 Adult Learners Bring and Use Their Past Experiences During The Learning Event.

The incoming knowledge and past experiences of adult learners must be respected and incorporated.

But children are often seen in the opposite way; that they bring very little past experience to the learning task. However, I did not find that to be the case for my son. He is a voracious reader and sports statistics enthusiast. We used these past experiences to build and connect with our homeschool learning plans. For example, his sports statistics interests and knowledge were the basis for many math lessons and learning activities. We built on his incoming knowledge by adding more advanced topics and scenarios.

#3 Adult Learners Are Intrinsically Motivated.

There are various sources of intrinsic motivation for adult learners (e.g., curiosity, taking on a challenge, being more successful at their job).

In contrast, young learners are often seen as more extrinsically motivated (e.g., focusing on grades or the consequences of failure). Interestingly, the flexibility of homeschool allowed me to find ways to capitalize on my son’s intrinsic motivations. He is incredibly curious, so we followed his interests in planning instruction. Grades are not a focus in homeschool and there were no peers for comparison, so that removed some of the external factors that would typically identify “success” or “failure”. Instead, “success” was defined as gaining new skills/knowledge that helped him pursue his hobbies or interests. This was highly motivating! For instance, he was beyond excited to learn new math skills that helped with his sports statistics calculations.

#4 Adult Instruction Should Be Task-Oriented Instead of Memorization

This makes complete sense, right? If you’re training someone to use a new database, it is not enough to have them memorize the steps to enter new data. You want to give them the opportunity to practice (and fail) in a safe learning environment where the tasks mimic what they’ll encounter in their work.

I found the same with homeschool. Traditional memorization or repetitive tasks (e.g., memorizing spelling words) were very boring for him. However, when we could build real-life tasks and scenarios that mimic what he’ll need to do out in the real world, the learning activity was much more engaging and effective.

One of my favorite task-oriented learning activities was building a “grocery store” in our dining and living rooms last November. I tasked my son with following a budget and planning a menu for Thanksgiving. He had to use a lot of strategy and math to make his shopping trip align with the assignment’s guidelines. [This was also really really fun!]

I’d love to hear from you! Whether you teach adults or kids (or just supervised virtual learning over the past year):

What are some key principles that help you design your learning activities?
What strategies do you use to engage and motivate your learners?

All I Really Need to Know About Instructional Design I Learned Teaching Homeschool