The impact of knowing your ... Peda, Andra, Heuta ... gogies ...

Often I hear the process of teaching and learning described in my world in pedagogical terms. Which is odd, as the "peda" part of the word refers to children. Working in a University and dealing with adults across a wide age range. Typical thinking focusses on Andragogical terms, where the learning mode of adults differs from that of children (but not entirely).

Heutagogy seems to be a popular term at the moment, it is appearing in multiple forums (or I am simply noticing it for the first time). The Heuta part, refers to self paced, self managed learning - often in the context of the discussions I am observing via MOOCs (massively open online courses).

In my view, biased and misinformed that it is ... while there have been books, we have been Heutagogical learners. Somewhere in every topic, discipline and domain there is a point where the individual learner moves from teacher centred to self centred learning. 

Moreover, as adults and children we all move seamlessly between both states - tho this does depend entirely on our level of confidence, competence and self delusion. Children who are by default always learning will at different stages direct their own learning as well as rely on the input from both peers and their teachers (who may be a parent, the adult actor is interchangeable).

Adults, tend to be more capable of accommodating this; often embarking on andragogical experiences after doing some initial heutagogy then continually interchanging between both depending on context, subject matter at hand or quality/relevance of teaching within the andragogical environment.

Where heutagogy occurs, such as reading a text book or engaging in an online course. You are in effect, via learning design engaging in a distance form of andragogy - the content creators are managing you learning. How you move on from this and extend your experience is probably more heutagogical.

So - what am I saying. In many senses, a heutagogical experience is often a collection of remote andragogical experiences. Where each curation and decision made to take the next self managed learning experience is formed as a result of each prior choice, informed by the remote andragogy of the material you have sourced.

I have not even started to consider the impact of a cognitive apprenticeship and how this would also deeply inform how we manage our heutagogical experience. The reality is, as adults ... we are always learning - we opt to enter/exit this experience as well as having it subconsciously imposed upon us.

While we may no longer be in the pedagogical classroom environment of our childhoods. Many of us are dipping in and out of this all of the time.