Abstract:

The paper discusses the issues of the online education of grown-ups, online education technologies, the digitalization of education, and the effectiveness of the teacher's work teaching students online. Adult pedagogy is based on the fact that an adult student is capable of independent learning, and their desire to learn grows out of a personal desire to improve their qualifications or learn something new in order to be a valuable specialist in the market. That is why teachers face the problem of choosing technologies for teaching adults, both technological and methodological.

The need to use student-centered technologies in vocational education in general and in additional education in particular is essential. Personally-oriented approach is supposed to suit this thus leading to students’ conscious development.

The survey conducted by the authors comprises 125 students from various faculties who belonged to different age groups. After examining the question of different ways of education – traditional one and online education of adult students – and comparing students’ opinions about these forms we found out that the convenience factor of learning is the one to prevail while choosing a particular training program. The same applies to the training format: the more structured material is preferable (the item including the organization of the material was chosen by the fifth part of the respondents) than personal characteristics (only 15% of the respondents considered personal characteristics to be the main criterion for choosing a training program).

Taking into account Knowles' six assumptions about the adult student it is suggested that teachers might use online forms of education that include contract learning, discussion platforms, experiential learning, portfolios, partner selection, and self-directed work which seem to be the most appropriate. Thus a collaborative learning format is the logical continuation of these assumptions for the online class.

Keywords:

Additional adult education, online education, technologies, vocational education, educational process.