Answer to Question 1
Lifelong learning is gaining acceptance as a way to remain cognitively active and professionally current. But can the teaching of adults merely be an extension of the teaching techniques used when instructing children? The answer is no. Adults learners differ from child learners in some important ways. First, adults have a higher need to understand why they should learn something before they learn it. Second, adults enter a learning situation with more and different experience upon which to build than do children. Third, adults are more willing to learn things that will help them with real-world situations rather than hypothetical or abstract situations. Finally, most adults are internally motivated to learn rather than externally motivated. For example, an adult may be more likely to learn something new for reasons of personal satisfaction rather than for a pay raise. It's important for educators to remember that learning styles change as we age.
Answer to Question 2
People tend to use different strategies in solving problems based on the context in which they occur. However, there are some interesting age-related differences found in the literature. For example, younger adults are more likely to use similar strategies across situations. They use self-action to fix the problem. Older adults are more likely to vary their strategy based on the problem-solving context. For example, in dealing with interpersonal situations, such as family matters, they use more emotion regulation. However, in more instrumental situations, such as deciding what to do with defective merchandise, they use more self-action strategies, like returning the product. Blanchard-Fields and colleagues (1997) argued that as we age and acquire experience, we become more sensitive to problem-solving contexts and we act accordingly.
Adult blue whale from the eastern Pacific Ocean
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A small adult H. erectus from Olorgesailie, Kenya.
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