I have found that my younger students (18-25) rely on internet/smart phones more so than students over the age of 40. The younger students are much better at staying in touch with me with questions about assignments via their smart phones. Students in their 30's rely much more on email. Younger students are not intimidated at all with online learning; they have usually had experience with online learning in high school. The challenges are in demonstrating to older students that it really is easy to obtain information they need from the internet. I have been able to find some excellent learning videos on teachertube that I show in the classroom, and students of all ages enjoy that.
Corina,
With groups and icebreakers it is good to have guidelines and keep the groups 3-5. One idea is to have a debate on a topic or situation they may experience in the field and each group must present was solution they came up with no right or wrong answer.
Antoine Lewis
Yes, humor does cause a group to get off subject. For an icebreaker, slides would come in handy? In cosmetolohy there are lots of things that are hard to picture by explaing. So if I had slides of infected toenails or pictures of lice under the microscope...that would be an ice breaker! Now I need to learn how to make a slide and show it thru the projector :O)
I tried groups and tried to mix up the calm students with hyper ones to balance them out. I had the same problem when some students just wanted to be alone, and a student complained later that she never wanted to be in a group with a partictular student again, because that student only copied and had no input at all.
Corina,
Humor and real-world situations often help bring the focus back to the task at hand but can also lead to side conversations within the classroom so be careful with that. With such a large age range it may be best to have ice breaker related to the course and group projects or presentations to hold everyone accountable.
Antoine Lewis
I have about 4 different age groups! I have the late 40's, 20-25, and 30-35 group and fresh out of high school. Plus a couple of my students have a language barrier. The older students don't have a computer at home and still have a flip phone with no internet or texting.(My hand is up cause I have a phone like that)Some have computers but don't have time for it or an intrest. Then there's the younger group that won't use the internet for nothing but socializing. It's a huge challenge keeping the phones turned off and out of sight.
Hands on lessons will keep the attention of the whole group, but the younger group catches on fast and becomes a disruption when waiting to move on.
I use humor or shock value when I' able to tell stories from over the years of working in the public. Does anyone have any other ways they have used humor to keep a class ingaged?
Cheryl ,
In my experience student in an online environment do not like working in groups for the following reason(s):
• They feel they work best alone
• Other will not give the same effort
• Does not have time to communicate with others
One sugestion would be to give let the class or student know how this will benefit them.
Example: Getting experience working with others with differing learning styles and capabilities is
highly beneficial because it will often happen to you in the workplace.
When it comes do dealing with age many of the younget student adapt and naviagte well with any learning management system. The older adult learners struggle with locating information and naviagating but often the older learnings are more organized and ask questions. The younger learnings may not ask as many questions or get in engage as much unless it benefits their grade. To combat that is always good to have a forum avaliable week one in which you poses questions that get the students talking about strenghth and weaknesses teachnical and as a leaner and what they hope to learn for the course. It will give you a pulse of the class.
Antoine Lewis
