Motivation
Often times adult learners are motivated to learn based on internal rewards. What exercises can we do to learn about these rewards? Then how can we use this knowledge to make us better instructors.
Lance,
You are lucky to have this kind of student. Most career college students are working to qualify for positions closer to entry-level that may eventually lead to a great position.
Jeffrey Schillinger
In one of my jobs I teach adult leaners who will become certified and typically double their incomes while doing work at a higher level. The placement rate is 100% recently. They may not be great at the theoretical class that I teach (chemistry), but they are very motivated. More than students I've had at 4-year schools on average. Their goal is within reach and has a high chance of success while being very relevant to their lives.
At another school, students scrape their way through the program and desire who knows what. They have no confidence that their degree will pay off and neither do I.
Melissa,
How does your school ensure that all members of the team who need to know students' goals have that information?
Jeffrey Schillinger
My motivation for learning and going back to school is growth in the workplace, knowledge and the feeling of accomplishing something more. Motivation is one of the biggest reasons why people go back to school. In talking to most of the students here they are going back to school because they want achieve a goal or build on their skills for their positions. Another key motivation I hear a lot is family. Students have felt that with education they can provide more for their kids, wife and so on. I know some exercises I have done in the past as a student was to write a letter about where I want to be and then towards the end of school the letter was returned. It helped me to understand my growth with learning and made me realize that even the things motivating me was different then when I first started school.
Bonita,
We sometimes call this the "one minute paper." It gives a chance for different types of questions and helps bring a class to an organized conclusion.
Jeffrey Schillinger
Allow a few minutes at the end of class to take a written Q and A survey on what the student has learned and what they enjoyed about the class to help them to the next level in their studies or career. These students can be internally rewarded by positive feedback from the instructor. The instructor can keep tract of the information received from the students to follow during the length of the course.
Students will understand that the instructor cares about each individual student and this will help internal motivation to continue striving/learning.
Lairlyn,
Much would be better if we were able to think about things we "get to do" instead of things we "have to do."
Jeffrey Schillinger
The biggest motivation I could think of is that the student is attending a class because he wants to and not because he has to.
Maria Luisa,
This is a nice story. Thanks for sharing it. Please thank your student for his service to all of us.
Jeffrey Schillinger
I have a 60 something retired vet that enrolled in the program. He is well accomplished in his line of expertise but still wants to finish the program to give back to his fellow vet. His motivation was helping the wounded warriors and for him to accomplish this was to go back to school so he can be licensed and help his comrades.
Thank you, Lisa. What are one or two of your "go to" strategies that appeal to the most learning styles?
Jeffrey Schillinger
Often times we do a self-examination of what motivates each of us and how we are all different.
We discuss these individually and it helps them to see that we are all different. I also use different styles to help appeal to the different styles.
Emily,
I believe that no one can motivatie anotherperson. It has to come from within. That being said, our job as teachers is to establish conditions in which our students choose to do the things we want them to do to learn, practice adn gain confidence. We need to find ways for them to be successful to foster more success.
Jeffrey Schillinger
I always start my new class with that question and have them e-mail me their response, then about halfway thru I show them their e-mail and ask them to see if anything has changed.
Motivation comes from within. I think once a students accomplish a certain task, then they seem to get more motivated to go over and beyond.
Tanya,
What makes one group "better that the other?" How do you adjust your sails to account for a group that is below the mean relative to other groups?
Jeffrey Schillinger
Usually I ask students at the first class what they expect to achieve in this class.
I love my students- they are usually very motivated to learn. Some groups are better than others.
Jacqueline,
There are varied opinions on pre-testing. Some believe it works well when measuring mastery of something students are supposed to already be familiar with. Some folks, myself among them, do not see a great value in pre-testing when students are coming into a courses to learn material for the first time.
That being said, finding ways to document what students are learning and deonstrating their progress is a good thing to do.
Jeffrey Schillinger
At the beginning of a new semester, it would help if the students were given a pre-test on the subject and after 2-3 weeks a post-test . This will allow the student to see how well they are doing. The major part of this is to keep asking the students if they are understanding the information being given.
