GLOSSARY

Development of the LARA training package has included the discussion, creation and redefinition of terms to describe aspects of ageing and learning. The project lexis may not be easily transferable between languages and so we offer here an interpretation to assist your understanding of the text.

Active learning

Learners participate fully in a group or class assuming responsibility for their own learning and that of other group members through activities that enable debate, discussion and the sharing of ideas and experiences. Goals of active learning include: the creation of individuals who recognise when learning is required; who know how to learn and who can apply learning to life.

Advocacy

Advocacy describes a process whereby information and data about a topic or issue is used to ensure that it is represented in the right way to the right people. The information contained in the LARA training package contributes towards the argument in favour of including learning in policies and practice that address ageing. It can and should be used by those with influence over local, regional, national and international policy makers to ensure that the place of learning in the ageing process is not overlooked.

Andragogy

The art and science of helping adults learn. Andragogy acknowledges and builds on the independence of adults, their experience and their desire to exert control over what and how they learn.

Chapters

The major experiences encountered in a lifetime. Examples of chapters are:  schooling; career; parenthood.

Competence/s

Specific skills and abilities that underpin successful ageing and that enable the individual to maintain independence and active participation in life. In the LARA model competences have been grouped into areas of activity (literacies) common to many lives.

Differentiation

Within education, differentiation encompasses actions that a teacher may take to ensure that, in group learning, individual need and expectation is allowed to flourish. Differentiated approaches include: the provision of a range of resources, tasks and activities so that people may learn and progress in ways that are relevant to them; the management of time to ensure equitable support for group members; group management techniques that broaden the scope of learning (peer mentoring and support, for example).

Experiential learning

The exploitation of experience to initiate, create and deliver learning. Experiential learning is founded on the belief that adults accumulate a body of skills, knowledge and understanding through a lifetime of experiences, good and bad. This wisdom enables people to identify what they still need to learn and it provides resources that can be applied to new learning situations. Experiential learning acknowledges and draws on what adults can do in order to support them to do more.

Facilitator/facilitation

A view of the teacher and of teaching that challenges the didactic model. Facilitation is the action of eliciting learning rather than imposing it. Within the principles of andragogy and experiential, active learning, the facilitator operates as a catalyst for the sharing of experience. In the provision of a variety of resources, tasks and activities and in the management of the group, a facilitator enables learners to achieve new skills and understanding from collective real life experiences. Facilitation places the teacher on a par with learners. Control of learning passes from the group leader to the group. Professional expertise is targeted at shaping knowledge and skills within the group towards achieving new learning.

LARAgogy

An invention of the project that describes the relationships between learning and the ageing process. LARAgogy embraces received educational doctrine (andragogy, experiential learning, active learning e.g.) and applies its principles to the delivery of skills, knowledge and understanding for ageing.

Literacies for ageing

The broad areas of lifetime activity in which individuals need to become ‘literate’ in order to age well. Becoming literate involves the acquisition and application of competences through a learning process. LARA literacies include: learning; health; technological; emotional; financial; civic and community.

Stage posts

Single life events that have the potential to trigger a transition from one life chapter to another. These events may be chosen by the individual (marriage) or may be imposed (redundancy).

Transition/s

The passage between one chapter of your life and another. Examples: from working life to retirement; from family member to single status.