Submission date
3 March 2023 at 6:59:53 am
First name
MERCY
Last name
JESUVADIAN
title
Lecturer
National Institute of Education
Affiliation
Country
Singapore
Bio
Mercy has over 20 years of experience in teaching and training in Singapore. She has taught in both secondary and tertiary institutions. She holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Education (PDGE) from NIE (1998). She graduated with a Master's in English Studies from the National University of Singapore (2002) and a Masters in Early Childhood Education from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in 2007. Mercy earned her Doctor of Philosophy in Early Childhood Education from NIE, NTU in 2016. She is currently a lecturer in Psychology, and Child, and Human Development (PCHD) Academic Group at NIE. Her research interests include child development, family studies, home-school partnerships, parenting in urban settings, and research methodologies. Apart from her academic interests, she enjoys n reading, writing fiction, and creative non-fiction. She is currently working on a book on childhoods in Singapore.
Paper title
Micro-fiction as an Andragogic tool
Keywords
andragogy, micro-fiction, engagement, emotion, learning
Abstract
Teaching adults is fundamentally different from teaching young children and adolescents. This presentation explores the use of micro-fiction as an andragogic tool, drawing from my experience as a facilitator of professional development courses in Early Childhood Education in Singapore. Adults deliberately select particular professional development courses to build up their knowledge and skill set to further their personal and professional goals. Adult learning experiences need to be crafted in ways that align with how adults learn, namely, to incorporate prior knowledge, personal and corporate life experiences, and specific problems that adult learners want to address and resolve in their professional practice. Engagement during a learning experience in a professional development course is contingent on the content presented as well as the discussion and dialogue facilitated through specific resources which are provided by the facilitator. The use of case scenarios as a learning tool in adult education courses is typical. However, the case scenario though aligned to specific problems may not be an effective means to generate engagement and reflection enough for the adult learner to draw from the real-life experiences of others as well as themselves. The storied format of micro-fiction, however, is able to fully immerse the adult learner into the issue being discussed. It encourages connection as it has a start, a middle, and an end within a maximum word count of 1500 words. The story form leverages emotion and character development, which pull the reader into building a connection with the problem or issue at the heart of the story. By using micro-fiction as the discursive resource in an adult learning setting and experience, facilitators are able to invite learners to reflect and problem-solve through engaging their prior knowledge, personal experience, and newly introduced knowledge that the current course presents. In this presentation, I share the process of creating such micro-fiction from academic research I have undertaken and discuss how the use of micro-fiction instead of traditional case scenarios can enhance the ways adult learners participate and problem-solve in education-related professional development courses in the field of early childhood education.
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