Adult Attention Span and Learning Styles
I teach four hour blocks at a health care trade school. This is really a challenge, especially when you consider that an adult's attention span is under eighteen minutes. As a result, I really try to focus on designing lesson plans that consider learning styles and that build in a lot of active learning strategies.
For adult learners, connecting the learning to their future career path and building in active learning that incorporates learning styles is critical. Often, I view myself as a facilitator more than as an instructor. I facilitate mastery learning using research on learning styles and active learning.
John,
I know you are going to have good results using this format. At the 15-18 minutes point you can quickly slide into a discussion, due a case study, etc.. The human brain needs variety before being engaged again and this format allows that to happen.
Gary
Dr. Gary Meers
Using the 15-18 minute amount of time as a guide, I plan to limit most lectures to this amount of time. Around the 15 minute mark is a good time to use some variety to assist the students with the material you have just presented.
I have found that having different tasks in the lesson plan for the day and I can touch on each way of learning, all of my students excel
Jacqueline,
Since I teach 6 hour blocks I agree with you about being more of a facilitator. We have to change the flow and pace of the class, not to mention offer different activities often so we need to be able to facilitate those changes in a way that keeps the students engaged. Sounds like you have a very good grasp of how to do it.
Gary
Dr. Gary Meers
I try to connect information in several different ways and present these to the students. They decide which method works best for them. I have found this to be very helpful with factual information that may be considered more difficult to remember. An example would be origins and insertions of muscles. We can memorize them by shared attachment sites, common movements, common actions, etc. The students will try them and find the one that works best for them!
