Adult learners
Students have trouble prioritzing family, work and studies. What are some responses that might help?
Hi Gloria,
This is what having a human side as an instructor is all about. Cases like the one you shared reinforces why we need to know what our students are coping with in real life while they are going to school.
Gary
As I begin my class, I ask the students to share a little bit about themselves as they introduce themselves. This activity begins to give me a handle on their situations. They call be when they can't make it because of work or family. In one class, the cell phone rang, she got up to go outside to take the call. When she came in she told me her 5 year old daughter had just been taken to the hospital in a coma. I told her to go and call me later. It turned out her daughter had diabites. The entire class became caring of her in this situation.
Hi Melanie,
This is a great way to show your understanding of where adult learners are coming from and how the demands of life impact their ability to get certain things accomplished. Your giving them some time at the end of the course to start their assignments is a great example of this.
Gary
I really enjoy working with adult learners. They have goals in mind and are motivated to achieve these goals. They also have many life experiences that they can contribute to the class. I feel the younger students look up to these adult learners as role models and will develop good habits. I will have small groups and make sure that the groups have diverse age groups. In order to help learners prioritize and have good time management skills I will always allow 10-20 minutes at the end of couse for students to work on assignments. This way they are able to get a good jump on the assignment so they can continue to live their life outside of school.
Hi Janice,
I may have a leg up in this situation. Fortunately have a great rapport with older students. I think it's due mostly to the fact that, at 63 I'm older than them. So, we relate pretty readily. Luckily, I seem to hit it off with the younger ones as well.
Discussing homework together is a great family activity! Encourage the adult learner to share their frustrations and celebrations. When it is appropriate, they can help each other with particular skills.
Hi Rebecca,
Three very good strategies for instructors to follow. These steps will engaged the students to the point they respect you as an instructor and you will be developing rapport with them throughout the duration of the course. This sets the stage for success and growth on the part of everyone.
Gary
Students who are having trouble prioritzing family, work, and studies can be helped in several ways. First, they can be helped by acknowledging that you understand their difficulty. Just listening to students helps them know that you care about their success. Second, they can also be helped by explaining that they other students often have these same difficulties. Knowing that others also deal with this same problem can help them to not feel alone. Finally, you can suggest some time-management skills that they can use to juggle these needs more effectively.
I think it is always good to try and reinforce the motivation that brought them back to school in the first place. Even someone who is back in school because of downsizing or another career path change, even if not desired, has motivation to learn.
Sometimes adult learners are at a disadvantage. They can be overwhelmed by learning a second or alternate career and they must deal with young candidates for the limited open positions
Hi Janice,
I use study guides that show students how they can complete projects or assignments in an efficient manner. Generally my students do not have good study skills because they have been out of school for a period of time. Also, I try to break my content down into small segments so the students can do a segment in a minimum amount of time. With all of their life pressures they can't devote 3 hours in a block to doing school work. They can put in 15 minutes to do an assignment. When their evening slows down or the kids are in bed they can then do another segment. This is a distributed method of lesson completion.
Gary
