Pentagonal Polygogy: Five Generations Share

Common knowledge holds that pedagogy has comprised the education of children, since classical Greece. During the 1980’s, American educator Malcolm Knowles popularized an alternative to the child-centered notion, developing andragogy, for "adult education", soon called “lifelong learning".

And now it is time for polygogy.

Brick and mortar classrooms, online engagements, and workplaces, are peopled by five generations of learners, all acquiring knowledge simultaneously.

This presentation defines the generations generally, including traditionalists, baby boomers, millennials, generations X and Z. It is suggested that popularly utilized learning style categories, such as visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinesthetic, be deployed in a social learning manner concurrently in classrooms populated by learners from all five generations. Rather than concentrating on how subject matter can or should be delivered to whom, usually from an administrative or teacherly perspective, social polygogy suggests that material be presented simultaneously in a variety of formats inviting learners to share how they have learned previously and hope to learn now.

Polygogy will be defined and distinguished from both pedagogy and andragogy, the need for polygogy will be addressed, and ways of executing it in alternative domains discussed.