Various sources provide us with a body of fairly reliable knowledge about adult learning. Such knowledge may be divided into three basic divisions: things we know about adult learners and their motivation, things we know about designing curriculum for adults, and things we know about working with adults in the classroom. 
Motivation to Learn
1. Adults seek out learning experiences in order to cope with specific life, changing events - marriage, divorce, a new job, a promotion, being fired, retiring, losing a loved one, moving to a new city.
2. The more life change events an adult encounters, the more likely he or she is to seek out learning opportunities. As stress increases as life-change events accumulate, the motivation to cope with change through engagement in a learning experience increases.
3. The learning experiences adults seek out on their own are directly related - at least in their perception - to the life-change events that triggered the seeking.
4. Adults are generally willing to engage in learning experiences before, after, or even during the actual life change event. Once convinced the change is a certainty, adults will engage in any learning that promises to help them cope with the transition.
5. Adults who are motivated to seek out a learning experience do so primarily because they have a use for the knowledge or skill being sought. To an end, learning is a means, not an end in itself.
6. Increasing or maintaining one's sense of self-esteem and pleasure are strong secondary motivators for engaging in learning experiences.
Curriculum Design
1. Adult learners tend to be less interested in, and enthralled by, survey courses. They have a tendency to prefer single concept, single-theory courses that focus heavily on the application of the concept to relevant problems. Such a tendency increases with age.
2. Adults need to be able to integrate new ideas with what they already know if they are going to keep - and use - the new information.
| 
