Learning styles with traditional formats
Do you think the older students do better in their learning styles as visual because of the traditional method of presenting the lecture material?
Mitchell,
The nice thing about older learners is they like clear direction and expectations. With that, they are willing to their hardest to meeet that. Life experience owing to work expectations probably contributes to this attitude.
Barry Westling
I think that older students do better at learning than younger students due to rather simplistic, clear cut and dry delivery methods and result expectations from the Instructor. I think that the rapid change in media and technology gives an instructor more tools but we are diluting what was once a disciplined form of teching. Plus, we as older people must adapt to the new technology and keep up with the younger students always adjusting our assessments of our student. We must continually montor the formative and summative developement. But it is getting a bit over whelming. KISS= Keep it simple silly.....
Mitch Becker
I have read with interest Hank's reply to your question. Older learners (with a nebulus definition) may have been exposed to more lecture format, less group-dependent learning, and may be more at ease with such an approach. As an "older learner" myself, I have great excitement in Web-based approaches to learning, with and without the group process. I have not yet developed a strong delight in group-dependent learning process, but as a current student I learn in groups as a means of surviving this currently popular learning theory.
I have found older students begin studies with less confidence they know how to learn than younger students. They want more fact than philosopy before they "buy in" to this learning process.
Hands-on, visual styles work best for older studies in the beginning, this has been my experience. I suggest this method not because of the traditional method they might have been engaged with in their childhood, but because they have learned in their more recent experiences that the "teacher" is not always right. You don't trust everything you hear, they are all from the "show me" state.
