Fernando Menendez's seminar on adult learning introduced me to andragogy, the work of Jane Vella, the Kolb learning cycle, learning style assessment, and a host of tools and approaches for transforming the classroom into a dynamic, collaborative space where multiple intelligences are honored and where students take increasing ownership of their learning process and peer teaching.
Having attended a host of similar seminars and workshops over the years, as well as having been a teacher-trainer myself, I have to say this was one of the best run seminars in which I have participated. Fernando's attention to each participant's needs, even before the seminar began, his assessment of each participant's learning style, his patience with each of our questions, and the breadth of knowledge he brought, not only from current scholarship but from his own experience, made the seminar worth every minute.
Fernando conveys the importance and complexity of learning processes and the preparation necessary to achieve them by modeling in the seminar the very techniques and ideas he is explaining. We leaned how to better understand ourselves and each other as learners, how to identify features of the learning environment conducive to dialogic and collaborative education, and how to design curriculum that meets the needs of diverse adult learners. We worked individually, in pairs, and in larger teams.
From the get-go, there was an emphasis on tangible results, an end product that would demonstrate our learning. Fernando established a fast pace that kept both energies and expectations high. The workshop demonstrated a seemingly effortless way of inspiring eagerness to complete our work with an ethic of excellence. By the end of the seminar, we were all actively sharing our work, receiving feedback from our colleagues, and learning from one another. We became the students we hope to teach and were shown firsthand the effectiveness of experiential learning.
