Helping a student
Adult learners will often require more help and motivation, due to possible intimidation by courde requirments
Dorothy,
Activities like this help to make the course content relevant and get the students engaged. Good job of helping them see that the course content has application outside of the classroom.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Working together activity : Breast Cancer Awarness Oct.month . Students have a bake sale, make posters, work towards common goal, donate money.Many of us know someone or have family members with this disease.
Dorothy,
This is one of the challenges of working with diverse student groups. We need to have activities where these different groups can work together and develop respect for what each person brings to the learning environment.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
I agree the older student sometimes have less patients with the younger students lack of maturity.
Jenny,
You sentence captures what the primary differences are between generational learners. This is why it is a challenge to engage all of the age ranges in our courses. I use a lot of strategies that have the different ages working together to solve mutual problems. This helps all groups to learn to work with and respect what each individual has to contribute to the class.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
I have found that adult studenets tend to be more motivated then younger ones. Even my older adult students are usually more motivated then my 18 - 20 year olds. I think this comes from maturity and career motivation.
Charles,
Good point. I know we all have had such a student and when he/she was given a chance to be successful they really grew in their self confidence.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Sometimes you have to give a student the leaway to show himself that he has the abilities and confidence to be successful.
David,
My experience as well. They are more "hungry" for content and less tolerate of behavior that impedes learning from other students. I really appreciate having them in class and the contributions they make to everyone's knowledge base.
Gary
Dr. Gary Meers
My experience is that adult learners are usually more motivated than younger learners. AQdult learners, especially those with families, have made considerable sacrifices to pursue their educational goals.
The one thing that I found about older students compaired to younger students is that the older ones seem more affraid to try something new. They tend to shy away from learning a subject because of the younger students.
Yvette,
This is a good model for keeping up to date with students and providing support when and if needed. Early intervention for non-traditional or older students helps to keep them engaged and forward focused so they won't be as likely to drop out.
Gary
Dr. Gary Meers
I agree that sometimes older students need more encouragements than a younger student. At my school we have weekly meetings with the students. This allows us to give one on one attention to the students. In this meeting we are discussing there weekly grades. This also gives us an opportunity to make sure that they don't have any questions or concerns that they will like to bring to our attention.
