Training adults: is it a processual and post-processual endeavour?
Currently, the increased need for commercial archaeologists is calling for a greater number of training programmes that can provide non-archaeologists the tools to perform on site to high standards as field archaeologists. This approach, if not new to us, defies the academic vision of archaeology and calls for a new way of thinking how we teach, especially how theory is learnt and utilised as a tool during excavation.
As a result, the session will try to analyse the current relationship between archaeological theory and the fieldwork stage and how this rapport might change once andragogy (adult learning) is added to the mix. In order to do this we will explore questions such as how processual and post-processual archaeology connects to andragogy? How can we encourage andragogy by bridging the gap between theory and practice? And how we can, as trainers in the commercial world, promote a closer relationship between theory and practice while teaching adult trainees.
CLAUDIA TOMMASINO, MOLA