Adult Learners
How do you keep your class fun but at a level for adult learners?
Teaching adults to me is a lot of fun (I teach adults that range from 20 to 50's). We color, paste, use glitter, do art...all in the name of medical terminology. We play jeopardy, speed games, etc. I reward with stickers and candy. At first they may view me as crazy (as most other instructors do). However, I promise them they will learn and this is a class where you leave your worries and stress at the door and have fun. It has worked and now my students compete with their children to hang their art work on the fridge!!
By using familiar games, you down on the time needed to explain how to play, which is a good thing.
Believe it or not adults like playing all kinds of games, childish ones also. I try playing things that they are fimiliar with already. I just change it a bit in adding the things that they are learning and need to remember.
A good sense of humor is a wonderful trait in a teacher. If you can laugh at yourself, the students will be less intimidated and more likely to participate. Thanks for sharing!
I have a good sense of humor I like making my students laugh it make the learning material fun
and exciting.
Karen, it is so important to consider and plan for the "safe" learning environment for learners, as well as learning as much from your students as they learn from you.
I think adult learners are more "fragile" than new learners.
Adult learners above all things "don't want to look/feel/seem stupid"
But they do want to learn and need to associate new concepts with life experiences.
I often learn more from adult learners than I teach.
klg
Students appreciate an instructor who can laugh at their own mistakes. I'd like to be a student in your class because you have a relaxed and human atmosphere which learners can sense.
I too use humor, also I can show students that I can laugh at myself! If I mispronounce a word or stumble on a sentence - it is not the end of the world - we are human and we will make errors - the trick is to not be so hard on ourselves or others!
My students have told me that I "teach at their level which makes them understand the material better". We have to put ourselves in their shoes and remember when we were in school and think back to all the things that we didnt like about our instructors and try to do better.
Candy, I agree using humor is a great teaching strategy.
I love to use humor!! Laughter is good for anxiety, stress & more but it also helps everyone to relax. I enjoy using experiences of myself to laugh over& yet it those things that will stick in the students mind & they will learn from my mistakes by laughing about it!
Thanks for your kind words about my course. I appreciate it! :-)
I use alot of humor in my classes and will at times connect the subject we are on with another class to relate the subject matter for the program. I will also make them reseach a topic and then present their findings to the class.
I like to remind my students that some of the most successful businesses have found through research that a relaxed, "homey", fun atmosphere is much more productive than the sterile, hospital like "Corporate" environment. Often, people think the plain walls and austere setting will motivate students to be better learners. I think that kind of environment scares them a bit, and is most likely counter-productive. I tell my students what I have found, and that some activities which at first might seem a little silly actually flip a switch somewhere in our brain that brings us back to a time when learning was fun (just like the ED310 course taught us - probably why I enjoyed the class so much).
Thanks for sharing the idea of word surgery. It sounds like a great teaching strategy.
We do a lot of hands on activities. In Medical Terminology we do something call Word Surgery. This is where each of my students use their flashcards to build words for other students to break down into Prefix, Combining Form and Suffix. They can make words that don't even make sense by doing this. The fun part is figuring out what each part of the word means to compile a definition. My students say that this is the best review for them and it helps them to understand their word parts.
Humor cuts the tension, lowers anxiety and helps to create positive relationships between and among students.
I agree humor is a great way to keep students motivated and having fun. I also use games, such as jeopardy; it keeps the students thinking and engages them.
