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Blending Generations

In today's career college classroom it is not uncommon to have a range of students in ages from 18 to 80 or beyond.  This wide range of ages can present a challenge in terms of trying to relate to and involve every student in the learning process.  Each age group as a different perspective on how they conduct themselves in class, their reasons for being enrolled and what they want from the course.  As the instructor it is your challenge to blend these diverse groups and challlenges into a focused learning opportunity for everyone.

One of the first things you can do is to develop an understanding of how each group functions.  The 18-25 year old group will approach learning one way and the older "downsized" or "underemployed" learner will approach in another way.  They do have many common goals so by taking the common goals and blending their diverse goals into a working instructional format success can be had by every group.

The use of work or learning groups is a valuable tool to use with a diverse groups like this.  By putting a balance of members composed of both younger and older students into the groups and giving them assignments that they work on together allows for both groups to work together while developing respect for what each member brings to the group. 

Over the duration of the course you will see that the different generations start to see how they can work together to achieve a common goal.  This is good preparation for them as they enter the work force since most places of employment have diverse work groups with whom they will need to learn how to work with.

I have found that when there is a spread in the age of the
students it allows for varying opinions on different topics that come up in
class. Some things are done differently now than they were done 10, 12, or 15
years ago. Some things are not even done anymore and some things never were
done in the past. The difference in age can add to this discussion and involve
the entire class.

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