The Adult Learning Theory

In general, the process of learning is defined as the act or experience of obtaining knowledge or skills. While a person’s memory is defined as the capacity of retrieving, storing, and acting on that specific piece of acquired information.

The process of learning is known to build new pathways and increase connections in the brain, which in turn strengthens it. It is the person’s unique experience and background that facilitates the learning of new concepts. In the physical sense, learning can be perceived as the formation of cell assemblies and phase sequences.

Normally, children acquire knowledge or learn new things by building these cell assemblies and sequences. An adult’s developed brain on the other hand, takes up more time in creating new arrangements than in building new sequences.

But when the learning process is analyzed in the neurological level, we learn that any established knowledge found in the person’s brain, regardless of whether it is acquired from experience or background, is a combination of intricate arrangements of electrical charges, cell materials, and several chemical elements.

Probably one of the main reasons why it’s often easier for children to learn new things is because the act of acquiring new knowledge requires less energy than re-learning or un-learning things. According to most experts, in order to produce the much needed energy for learning, it is necessary to access the higher functions of the brain first.

The adult learning theory simply assumes learning as the increase in knowledge, the act of obtaining knowledge for practical use, memorizing information, as well as the processing needed for people to understand.

Additionally, the theory also suggests that despite the difference in how a child’s brain and an adult’s brain acquire new information, it is still capable of learning from practically everything it perceives. The theory simply implies that regardless of age, the brain is still capable of building neural pathways in any subject or context.