Bill is 48 years old and has repaired lawn mowers in his small shop in Fairview, Tennessee for the last eight years. He is about 30 miles from Nashville, Tennessee, and he is just 12 miles from Dickson, Tennessee. He has deliberately kept his business small to control costs and complexity. Last week, he received a bulletin from this leading tractor manufacturer that it is introducing a new model with a new computer-based monitoring system. Although he has dealt with limited applications of computer chips in these machines, this is a much more sophisticated application. He knows that several of his customers own this brand of mower and that they are likely to buy the new models. He wants to learn how to repair these computer-based monitoring systems. In the bulletin, the company announced a limited number of seminars at the manufacturing plant in Horicon, Wisconsin. It has also announced a series of Webinars and online training sessions for the new innovation. There is also a manufacturer's service manual for the new models. Bill cannot take time off or afford to travel to the seminars.
Answer the following questions based on the scenario:
What do you think Bill should do to construct a learning plan? If he were to write one out, formally, what might it look like? How would you express his learning needs? What would his terminal performance objective look like?
What kinds of self-motivation does Bill have? Discuss ways in which Bill will apply elements of the affective domain in this learning project.
How can Bill apply the cognitive concept of metacognition and its extension, reflexivity, from constructivist theory? How do Piaget's ideas
on assimilation and accommodation apply to this example of adult learning?
What other elements or characteristics of constructivist learning theory might he apply here? How can he learn what he needs to learn as quickly and as thoroughly as possible?