adult learners
the one challenge that i see as an instructuor , is keeping all types of learning styles engaged in the lectures. some adult learners ; have a different outlook than other younger students.
This has been my conclusion, also. I have noticed that many of our adult students are switching careers and choose our field as their second career in life. Their level of dedication and motivation are very high and they assume a proactive role in their education.
I agree aaron the adults studendts seem to have a better understanding of what the job faces in the real world. They seem to be more interested also on what ever the material if it will better them.
Rosa,
This has been my experience with my adult students as well. They bring a lot of life experiences to class that help other students to see the value of the content being taught.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
It seems to me that adult learners are more focused in their studies and have clearer career goals, whereas, sometimes with the younger generations, they are a little unfocused and it is harder to keep them engaged.
Aaron,
This has been my experience as well because they have the life experiences that has shown them the value of completing their program and creating a future for themselves.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
It seems that for the most part, in my experience with adult learner, they come to class more prepared than some of their younger counterparts.
John,
Using stories from your own career experiences is a good way to engage students and getting them to see their own future within the experiences you share. My students also get excited when I tell them about a situation I experienced and then how I worked through it. Sometimes I was successful and other times I was not. Either way it turned out the students learned from the story about how to problem solve and work through situations.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
That is a good point. How does one keep all of his/her students engaged, motivate and inspired. One technique I like to use is to get the students with more life experience to interact in a group setting with the students with less life experience. This can sometimes spark a great conversation with many learning objectives.
Michael,
This is an ongoing challenge for all educators. One of the fun parts of our job is being creative and seeing how we can do this with various activities and projects.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
