Learning
how often do you find that it is easier to work with a student who is older rather than younger. I feel it is mcuh esier, becasue they seem to care more and are generally more dedicated.
Charles,
Your last sentence captures a strategy for working with adults students very well. Let their life experiences become a part of their learning pathway and the result will be success for them as well as success for the younger students that they work with.
Gary
Dr. Gary Meers
It has been my experience that more mature students DO care more. I generally will call on these students to help a student that is struggling in my class. Older students may have a greater appreciation of what they are doing because this may be a second career and possibly what they REALLY wanted to do with their life in the beginning. The real key in my mind is to use their maturity in the class room to enhance the learning process for all.
Allen,
Also, many of them are coming to school with clear career objectives in mind. They know what they want and are focused on giving the effort it takes to be successful.
Gary
Dr. Gary Meers
I strongly agree that working with an adult learner is easier because for many it is a career change.
Although older students has serious existing responsibilities that occupies their thoughts, they understand the need to learn and therefore will make the effort to learn. They will ask more questions and participate more than younger learners.
Lyndi,
Mine to. They know what they want and why they are in school. They get after it once I get them over their fear of failure since they have been out of school for a number of years.
Gary
Dr. Gary Meers
I agree! Working with older adult is easier. My older adult students try harder and are more interested in having an education.
Neelam,
I agree. With episodic memory connections they retain new knowledge at a higher level and are able to then apply that knowledge in different settings.
Gary
Dr. Gary Meers
Araceli,
Good analysis and explanation of working with different learner age groups. They do approach the acquisition of new knowledge differently. This is why we need to be adjusting our delivery throughout the course so we can keep the learners on target.
Gary
Dr. Gary Meers
I feel student learn very well with episodic memory and for that real life experiences or relating to them helps in retaining and thus learning.
I find it a bit more difficult to teach an older student sometimes. Only because some older students are so set in their ways and are used to being in charged. When they see that they are not in control in the classroom some tend to lash out at the instructor, by nick picking and totally putting all my actions under the microscope to find and pin point my mistakes. I realize a may look younger but doesn’t mean I don’t have the knowledge and the experience to do my job.
Sometimes if there is an assignment they don’t understand or concept they don’t grasp and they notice that the younger students did understand then it becomes the instructor fault for explaining it well enough.
On a different note there are those older students who do appreciate the knowledge that you as an instructor have to offer and they show it by fully completing all assignment and not questioning or rolling the eyes at any direction given.
Older students seem much more focused and take assignments more seriously.
