Some aspects of andragogy were incorporated into the IEP (Individualized Education Program) writing training that I received on the job as an intervention specialist.

 

  As a philosophy, andragogy differentiates adult learning of this sort from the learning activities of childhood and adolescence.  One assumption it makes is that adults are best oriented to learning information that can be immediately applied (Pappas 2013).  We knew going into the training that knowledge of how to write these documents was an immediate need - IEP writing starts as soon as the school year does.  Many of my colleagues who had been in the field for some time were able to build on prior knowledge of IEP writing while going through this training.  Even as one of the least experienced intervention specialists in the room, I had prior knowledge to build off of since I had studied the subject in college and written IEPs in the past.

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However, this training did not fully address andragogic design principles.  One principle states that "[a]dults need to be involved in the planning and evaluation of their instruction" (Pappas 2013).  This training was mandatory for all intervention specialists, meaning that they were not involved in designing their own training.  This also meant that many of my colleagues felt that they were not getting much out of this training at all.  Although IEP assignments often present problems that must be solved, no such examples were presented in this training.  Instead, learning how to tackle these problems was left to more informal follow-up learning and collaboration with peers.