1. Adults like to COLLABORATE and have support from peers

A community of practice is a group of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do, and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly. This definition reflects the fundamentally social nature of human learning.

Social Learning Theory, theorized by Albert Bandura, states that people learn from one another, via observation, imitation, and modeling. This theory encompasses attention, memory, and motivation which are all important aspects of effective learning; emotion is something we will look at in section 4.

Providing our adult learners with opportunities to learn with and from others helps to support their learning, while providing them with opportunities to give and receive feedback to their peer learners enhances this experience (we will look at feedback next). I have included a video here from Cason Smith on Six Adult Learning Principles. While I don't feel that this list is all-inclusive, I think it is worth your while looking at to get a feel for what adult learners need and how to build their learning.

This video will provide detailed information on Bandura's snake experiment (I know!) and how the theory was developed. It's interesting and I think helps to round out the theory for you. Also the first Adult Learning Theory video provides some nice explanations of the some of these concepts in a nice way so I hope you take the time to view it!