Motivating the Adult Learner
I feel the most important point of motivating an adult learner is to show them how they benefit by learning the subject material and how it is useful and practicial for their job and/or career. If you don't get that "buy in" it's hard to keep their interest. They feel like it's a waste of time.
Hi Elizabeth,
This is a great strategy for helping the students to see the need for a solid foundation which will help them in the future careers. Plus, you are giving them a little teaser of things to come by introducing some PT fundamentals along the way. This should help with motivation as well.
Gary
Very True, the adult learner has goals and other things that he/she can do with his/her time, they don't have to be in school or do the work, it is not required by law and mommy and daddy aren't making them, so if they don't have a reason for the learning the material they won't. Somethings that I have found when teaching anatomy is the students are over whelmed with the material and it is not until they reach PT fundamentals where they are learning to workout that they learn just how important the information was in anatomy. So When I teach anatomy I try to add in elments of PT Fundamentals, so the students can get a feel for how this information is important.
Yes the whats in it for me method. We see it all the time and it is a good motivator when you can get them to see the benifits
I agree. It is very important that our adult learners see how a subject can benefit them in their career. I try to always make this a point in my lectures.
