all ages working together
How can I get the "just out of high school" students and the older "life experience" students to relate to each other?
Kayla,
This is very common. One of the ways to get them talking and working together is to put them in small groups to work on case studies or problem solving situations. I often make the groups competitive so very quickly the generational different students forget that there are differences and they start to focus on the group assignment. After a few of these experiences they start to respect what each person can contribute to the group.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
I have found that my older more experienced students easily get annoyed with my younger students in certain situations? What are ways that I can help avoid this?
Katie,
I do to. I use small groups where I assign students of different ages and experiences into the groups. Then I assign case studies where everyone works together to come up with a solution to the problem. They quickly forget the differences and start to focus on the contributions that each group member can make.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
I think it is best to put the students in mixed groups. They seem to learn better that way. The students will learn things from others and that will help them complete the program.
Joseph,
Good strategy. Thank you for sharing it with us. Sounds like you have some very good discussions with your students as an entire class as well as small groupings. This way they get to exchange their knowledge, experiences and opinions in a variety of ways to the benefit of everyone.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Heather,
Thank you for these kind words about the sharing of the idea of different generations working together. My students love case studies and when they work on them together they forget the generational differences and start to gel as a learning community. Then they start pulling into the discussion their own life experiences and they start to see how each person no matter the age can contribute to the solution.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Grouping different aged students for projects is good but I have also found that communication between these age groups can start to happen simply by doing daily exercises that generates creative class discussions.
One example is to have the students each bring in a digital image of a favorite piece of artwork. Then I project them on the wall and have a round robin discussion about what the artist was trying to accomplish.
If I'm not teaching a class that's creative I can usually substitute artwork for a current event headline.
Dr. Meers and class, I love the idea of assigning younger and older students to a case study or project. Giving them the ability to work together and share "life experiences"! Our course reading states that when students of different ages work together in small groups "there is an opportunity to develop an appreciation for what each student brings to the class". This is so powerful!
Heather Austin
Dean,
This is a common problem in settings like this. What I try to do with my older students is to give them early success in the course. In fact I have some activities we do as ice breakers the first class meeting that are fun as well as rewarding. I select activities that the younger students do not know a lot about so my older students can see how their life experiences will help them in the class. The first class meeting establishes in their minds whether they think they can be successful or not in the class so I want them to see that in fact they can be if they are willing to put forth the effort.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Marcie,
Put them in groups together and assign them case studies or projects. It doesn't take very long for the different generations to start to blend together to work toward a common cause. You may have to move some of your students around because once in a while the different personalities do not mix but that isn't very often.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
I am having that same issue here at our school. We are finding that some of the older students want to drop the course because they feel like they're to old to grasp what's taught and it might be too late to make a career change. Plus putting up with the less than mature attitude during class time and and group assignments. The older students get frustrated after time.
