Quality Instruction
What are some characteristics of an effective instructor of adult learners?
The instructor must be clear, concise, approachable, motivating, caring, ethical, moral, inclusive, sensible, and compassionate among many others but mostly the instructor must understand the learning styles of their student and how to relate the student's life to the objectives of the class.
Robert,
Great ideas. Thanks for sharing this with your peers.
Jeffrey Schillinger
What has worked well in my classrooms according to the students are the following:
1. Being passionate as well as knowledgeable about the subject matter
2. Conduct the sessions as more discussions rather than lectures. I am always asking open ended questions about the topics to get the students' take on the topics.
3. Have interactive activities throughout the class time frame. This can include team or group activities or something that I call teaching from the back of the classroom. This is where I put some topics on the board then go to the back of the classroom and ask the students to go up and put their comments to the topics so we can then discuss them.
4. Being available to the students especially in those type of classes that are typically more challenging. This would include those that are more analytical in nature.
Shalomar,
Thank you for this post. What are one or two specific things you do during the hiring process to determine if a candidate processes all of these traits?
Jeffrey Schillinger
Excellent characteristics of an effective instructor would be:
1) Knowledge of the material
2) Able to relate and apply topic of discussion into real life scenario
3) Able to anticipate possible questions
4) Able to simplify a complicated topic for students to understand
5) Able to find ways to keep students in class mentally stimulated to keep them awake
6) Able to cater/adjust to all learning styles
Bonnie,
Students respect experience and caring. I had a couple of teachers in your age bracket. The one that showed caring was much more effective and popular than the one with similar experience who did not seem to like the students.
Jeffrey Schillinger
I teach students from the early 20's to mid 60's and our class time is short. I have found that the student relate to me because of my experience and age.
I am 72 and teach classroom in a truck driving school and was a driver for over 18 years. Teaching from this point works very well for me.
Samuel,
Nice post. Thanks. This is good advice.
Jeffrey Schillinger
Creating ways to include adult learners in discussions to share their relevant life experiences, which interests and stimulates their classmates, and helps the student to feel heard and acknowledged for their valuable and uniques contributions.
I think quality instructors not only are content-experts on the material, but know how to adapt to meet the needs of the students and varied learning styles. Being quick to assess the classroom, then adjust lesson plans is a key skill. The incorporation of effective active learning strategies can assist an instructor at meeting this need.....
Thomas,
Thanks for sharing this. It sounds like the type of instruction I would want to experience.
Jeffrey Schillinger
As an instructor, I am excited to provide students with a wider context for the information that is being taught. Currently, I am teaching anatomy and physiology to vocational health students and I try to relate what the students are learning back to specific diseases they will see, or clinical experiences that they will have. In order to provide greater context (past basic anatomic facts), I try to incorporate a variety of activities into my lectures: multiple pictures/ diagrams (for visual learner), videos (for visual/ auditory learners), and palpation/ experiments/ hands-on demonstrations (for my kinetic learners). I think having a diverse range of activities/ teaching aids helps students engage with the material in complementary ways, despite different learning styles and life experiences. Having different modalities in the lecture also helps to stimulate different regions of the student’s brain, facilitating increased retention of the material.
Karen,
Appropriate humor is a great teaching tool. It is important to also design lessons that appeal to a variety of intelligences and learning styles.
Jeffrey Schillinger
An effective instructor is one who can engage the adult learners so that they capture the attention of all so boredom does not set in. They can do this with small group discussions and projects like story boards. Effective instructors need to make the class fun by adding lots humor to the topic
Grace,
Thanks for this post. What are you referencing by "creating balance? "
Jeffrey Schillinger
Adult learners have different ways of learning. Regardless, educators should activate adult learners, support their learning, enhance and maintain their learning. We have to assess their previous learning and knowledge to determine where to start enhancing their skills. Creating a balance is also a key to be able to assist every adult leaner in the classroom.
For me an effective instructor must first assess the learning styles of the students and from there develop a plan on how to implement and support the students learning needs. In addition caring attitude for the student is also a best quality of a instructor must possess.
Rebecca,
Passion for the subject goes a long way in inspiring adult students. When paired with good teaching methodology and a caring attitude, passion leads to learning, retention and graduation.
Jeffrey Schillinger
I believe one of the most effective characterists of an effective instructor of adult learners is passion for the topic. The educator must be knowledgable about the topic which often times follows passion for the topic. Adult learners are less forgiving in an enviroment where the educator is either no longer interested in the subject or fails to take the initiative to educated themselves thoroughly on the topic.
