From Teacher to Facilitator of LearningInstructors of adults generally want to ensure efficient and effective learning. This focus often leads to concentration on what they are doing rather than what the learner is doing. Applying core adult learning principles 2, 3, and 4 from the andragogy in practice model directs the instructor to use the existing knowledge, experience, and motivation of learners to shape the learning experience. The principles include: self-concept of the learner, prior experience of the learner, and readiness to learn. When this shift to the learner occurs, the leader’s role moves from that of a traditional teacher to a facilitator of learning. The facilitator role may appear to be more casual, but actually requires increased attentiveness to what is happening in individuals and groups of learners.

Most of us have been brought up to think of a teacher as one who is responsible (“accountable” is the current jargon) for what students should learn, how, when, and if they have learned. Instructors are supposed to transmit prescribed content, control the way students receive and use it, and then test if they have received it.

That is how most teachers perform. It is the only model of teaching many of us know. When invited to teach at George Williams College in Chicago shortly after World War II, that is how Knowles taught. Teachers can become pleased and proud of their performance as a pretty good transmitter—content well organized in a good logical outline; illustrating abstract concepts or principles with interesting examples, speaking clearly and dynamically; bringing forth frequent chuckles and inviting interruptions for questions of clarification along with lively discussions and practice exercises following lectures; and top this off with fair tests resulting in a good performance distribution curve.

Teachers can feel so good when their students did what they were told. Most students taking classes preparing for careers are conscientious and well behaved. They take notes, do homework, and are able to feed back on the final exam what they had been taught. When top students remember the very words from the instruction, teachers can feel psychically rewarded as being such a good transmitter of content and controller of students—being a really good teacher.

In retrospect, Knowles reports the following:

I had started taking courses toward a master’s degree in adult education at the University of Chicago a year earlier, and my first courses were with teachers who did just about the same things I was doing in my course. Toward the end of my course at George Williams College, I enrolled in a seminar in psychological counseling at the University of Chicago under Professor Arthur Shedlin, an associate of Carl Rogers. I was shocked by what happened at the first meeting. Some 15 students sat around the seminar table for 20 minutes making small talk. Finally, somebody asked if anyone knew where the teacher was. One of the people responded that his name was Art and that he had been designated by the Psychology Department to meet with us. Somebody else then asked if there was a course outline. Art responded, “You would like a course outline?” Silence for several minutes. Another student broke the silence by saying, “I’d like to know why everybody is here—what did you come to learn?” So we went around the table, stating our goals and expectations. When Art’s turn came, he said, “I am hoping that you will help me become a better facilitator of learning.”

I won’t attempt to reconstruct the ensuing events, but I can tell you that during the following week I read all the books Carl Rogers had written, located students who had taken the seminar and asked them what it was all about, and developed a plan for student inquiry teams, which I presented at the second meeting (which was adopted, with some modifications). I never read so many books and articles and worked so hard in any course I had ever taken. I had never before experienced taking that degree of responsibility for my own learning, alone and with other students, as I did in that seminar. It was exhilarating. I began to sense what it means to get turned on to learning. I began to think about what it means to be a facilitator of learning rather than a teacher. Fortunately, my next seminar, with Cyril O. Houle, reinforced this line of inquiry.

After my completion of the seminar with Cyril Houle, George Williams College asked me to teach adult education methods again. That was the day I decided to switch from being a teacher to being a facilitator of learning. At the opening session I explained to the students that I wanted to experiment with a different approach to teaching, and described my own experience in being exposed to two role models—Shedlin and Houle—of the role of learning facilitator. I confessed that I was not secure about my ability to bring it off, since I had never done it before, that it would only work if they agreed to take a higher level of responsibility for their own learning, and that I wouldn’t do it if they felt the risk was too high. They unanimously agreed to experiment with me.

I spent the rest of the first meeting having the students introduce themselves and identify their special interests and resources. I distributed a syllabus that listed the objectives the course was intended to help them accomplish and the content units (I called them “inquiry units”), with references to resource materials that would lead to the accomplishment of the objectives. I asked them which inquiry units they would take responsibility for during the week. In the second session I had them volunteer for the inquiry units they were especially interested in, and we formed “inquiry teams.”

The inquiry teams met, with me as a roving consultant and resource person, for the next four weeks, and then the rest of the semester was spent with the teams putting on “show and tell” sessions. I had never seen such creative presentations and pride of accomplishment. By the end of that semester, I was a confirmed facilitator of learning.

The TransformationWhen analyzing what had happened in his transformation, Knowles identified some fundamental changes. One’s self-concept changes from teacher to facilitator of learning. He saw his role shifting from content transmitter to process manager and—only secondarily—to content resource.

A different system of psychic rewards takes place in the instructor/facilitator. Getting rewards from controlling students is replaced with getting rewards from releasing students. The releasing rewards are much more satisfying.

Additionally, facilitators find themselves performing a different set of functions that require a different set of skills. Instead of performing the function of content planner and transmitter, which requires primarily presentation skills, facilitators perform the function of process designer and manager, which require relationship building, needs assessment, involvement of students in planning, linking students to learning resources, and encouraging student initiative.

It is almost impossible to go back, once a person has made the transformation from teacher to facilitator.

Releasing The Energy of OthersAdult learning specialists are committed to helping adults learn. This zealousness often leads to too much focus on the instructor/facilitator maintaining control. Backing away can be hard, and acknowledging that “one way of gaining control is by giving up control” is not an easy lesson. This section discusses the process of letting go so as to release energy in others. Releasing the energy of others requires paying attention to the andragogy in practice model. Specifically the six core adult learning principles along with attention to individual learner differences and the situational differences present in any learning environment.

Knowles undertook a personal intellectual adventure that paid high dividends in terms of understanding the role of leadership and in selecting more effective leadership strategies. The adventure consisted of seeing what would happen if one conceptualized a social system (family, group, organization, agency, corporation, school, college, community, state, nation, or world) as a system of human energy.

All at once a set of questions very different from those typically asked by leaders come to mind: What is the sum total of the human energy available in the system? What proportion of this energy is now being used? Where is the unused energy located? Why is it not being tapped? What kinds of energy (physical, intellectual, psychic, moral, artistic, technical, social) are represented? What might be done to release this energy for accomplishing greater goals for the system and the individuals in it?

By virtue of simply asking these kinds of questions, you begin to think differently about the role of leadership. Clouded by the era of Frederick Taylor’s “scientific management,” the role of leadership consisted primarily of controlling followers or subordinates. Effective leaders, from this view, were those who were able to get people to follow their orders. The consequence of this doctrine is, of course, that the output of the system was limited to the vision and ability of the leader. Realizing this provokes a rethinking of the leadership function. The alternative function of leadership is releasing the energy of the people in the system and managing the processes for giving that energy direction toward mutually beneficial goals. Perhaps a better way of saying this is that creative leadership releases the creative energy of the people being led.

Tests of this view of leadership have been done in two ways. First, by observing leaders of various sorts (teachers, business executives, educational administrators, and organizational and political leaders) through this frame of reference to identify characteristics that releasing leaders possess that controlling leaders don’t have. Second, by re-examining the research literature on human behavior, organizational dynamics, and leadership to find out what support it contains for this way of viewing the concept of leadership. The result of this bifocal inquiry is in the form of the following propositions regarding the behavioral characteristics of creative leaders:

1. Creative leaders make a different set of assumptions (essentially positive) about human nature from the assumptions (essentially negative) made by controlling leaders. It has been my observation that creative leaders have faith in people, offer them challenging opportunities, and delegate responsibility to them. Two of the clearest presentations of these contrasting assumptions in the literature are reproduced in  by Douglas McGregor in the case of assumptions by managers and by Carl Rogers in the case of assumptions by educators.

   The validity of the positive set of assumptions is supported by research which indicates that when people perceive the locus of control to reside within themselves, they are more creative and productive (Lefcourt, 1976). The more they feel their unique potential is being used, the greater their achievement (Herzberg, 1966; Maslow, 1970).

2. Creative leaders accept as a law of human nature that people feel a commitment to a decision in proportion to the extent that they feel they have participated in making it. Creative leaders, therefore, involve their clients, workers, or students in every step of the planning process, assessing needs, formulating goals, designing lines of action, carrying out activities, and evaluating results (except, perhaps, in emergencies). The validity of this proposition is supported by locus of control studies (Lefcourt, 1976) and by research on organizational change (Bennis et al., 1968; Greiner, 1971; Lippitt, 1969; Martorana and Kuhns, 1975), 

    A comparison of assumptions about human nature and behavior by leaders in management and education

   

   1. Creative leaders believe in and use the power of self-fulfilling prophecy. They understand that people tend to rise to the expectations of others. The creative coach conveys to his team that he knows they are capable of winning; the good supervisor’s employees know that she has faith that they will do superior work; the good teacher’s students are convinced that they are the best students in school. The classic study demonstrating this principle, Rosenthal and Jacobson’s Pygmalion in the Classroom (1968), showed that the students of teachers who were told that they were superior students were superior students; whereas the students of teachers who were told that they were inferior students were inferior students. And, of course, there was no difference in the natural ability of the two groups of students. The relationship between positive self-concept and superior performance has been demonstrated in studies of students (Chickering, 1976; Felker, 1974; Rogers, 1969; Tough, 1979) and in general life achievement (Adams-Webber, 1979; Coan et al., 1974; Gale, 1974; Kelly, 1955; Loevinger, 1976; McClelland, 1975).

   2. Creative leaders highly value individuality. They sense that people perform at a higher level when they are operating on the basis of their unique strengths, talents, interests, and goals than when they are trying to conform to some imposed stereotype. They are comfortable with a pluralistic culture and tend to be bored with one that is monolithic. As managers, they encourage a team arrangement in which each member works at what he or she does best and enjoys most; as teachers they strive to tailor the learning strategies to fit the individual learning styles, paces, starting points, needs, and interests of all the students. This proposition is widely supported in the research literature (Combs and Snygg, 1959; Csikszentmihalyi, 1975; Erikson, 1964; Goldstein and Blackman, 1978; Gowan et al., 1967; Kagan, 1967; Maslow, 1970; Messick et al., 1976; Moustakas, 1974; Tyler, 1978).

      There is another dimension to this proposition—more of a philosophical note than a behavioral observation. It is that creative leaders probably have a different sense of the purpose of life from that of the controlling leaders. They see the purpose of all life activities— work, learning, recreation, civic participation, worship—as a way to enable each individual to achieve his or her full and unique potential. They seek to help each person become what Maslow (1970) calls a self-actualizing person, whereas the controlling leader’s mission is to produce conforming persons.

   4. ) and aspire to make their organizations the latter. They are well grounded in the theory of change and skillful in selecting the most effective strategies for bringing about change (Arends and Arends, 1977; Baldridge and Deal, 1975; Bennis et al., 1968; Goodlad, 1975; Greiner, 1971; Hefferlin, 1969; Hornstein et al., 1971; Lippitt, 1978; Mangham, 1948; Martorana and Kuhns, 1975; Schein and Bennis, 1965; Tedeschi, 1972; Zurcher, 1977).
   5. Creative leaders emphasize internal motivators over external motivators. They understand the distinction revealed in Herzberg et al.’s (1959) research between satisfiers (motivators), such as achievement, recognition, fulfilling work, responsibility, advancement, and growth; and dissatisfiers (hygienic factors), such as organizational policy and administration, supervision, working conditions, interpersonal relations, salary, status, job security, and personal life. They take steps to minimize the dissatisfiers but concentrate their energy on optimizing the satisfiers. This position is strongly supported by subsequent research (Levinson et al., 1963; Likert, 1967; Lippitt, 1969).
   6. Creative leaders encourage people to be self-directing. They sense intuitively what researchers have been telling us for some time—that a universal characteristic of the maturation process is movement from a state of dependency toward states of increasing self-directedness (Baltes et al., 1984; Erikson, 1950, 1959, 1964; Goulet and Baltes, 1970; Gubrium and Buckholdt, 1977; Havighurst, 1972; Kagan and Moss, 1962; Loevinger, 1976; Rogers, 1961). They realize that because of previous conditioning as dependent learners in their school experience, adults need initial help in learning to be self-directing and will look to leaders for this kind of help (Kidd, 1973; Knowles, 1975, 1978, 1980b; Tough, 1967, 1979). And, to provide this kind of help, they have developed their skills as facilitators and consultants to a high level 

       Some characteristics of static vs. innovative organizations