It the teacher responsibility to make sure that the students feel comfortable in the learning environment and for the teacher to make the class fun and enjoyable to promote class retention.
I found the idea of options interesting. But I can see how that could be complicated for grading.
Reviewing and summarizing to start and end the session is a good method to create a non-threatening environment. When students have a choice, they are motivated to engage in learning.
During an activity in the classroom, do not sit at your table. Walk around the classroom and answer questions. Sitting will tell your students you are not eager to do activity and you rather do something else
Security is important for student learning and comfort. Students who feel comfortable are more confident and achieve improved learning outcomes. Autonomy is the student's belief about the amount of control they have in the learning process. Balance is important for the student and the instructor though. This autonomy will also improve learning outcomes.
Adult learners are "doers rather than thinkers" is an important concept in motivating and promoting autonomy. As a clinical instructor, I would pair up an adult learner with a young learner to promote both.
Reinforced man of my methods and helped to develop new ones.
I found myself thinking about a few new ways to implement active learning to improve security and autonomy for the student. A few take home activities for my classes are mind-mapping at the end of class, pair questioning, and short quizzes at the beginning of each class (perhaps a review of last week or reading content).
Finding a balance of security and autonomy for adult learning experiences is important and can be tricky, making sure that the students have structure, guidance, and reassurance while also having independence and allowing choice. They are both important when it comes to keeping them motivated.
When starting a new class, it's important to help the students understand that you are there to help them learn and grow the field they have chosen. Helping them feel secure in their own skills and abilities and giving them the knowledge that they can ask for help when they need it without negative feedback helps them feel empowered and secure.
All my classes are different depending on subject matter so require different approaches. Regardless though, I must set clear expectations of the students and clearly communicate with them.
I find that there are times that the adult evening groups prefer a structured teaching plan/path. Our five-week terms do not allow for a lot of free autonomy. I will try to introduce more opportunities of choice for our students. Many students are simply too tired or not accustomed to having some say in the order of the classroom activities. Again, I will utilize the key strategies of this training to slowly introduce these concepts to my future classes.
The interactive, in real time feedback seems to be a critical component of successful adult learning spaces.
As an adult learner myself I recognized the importance of autonomy to the learning process. The ability to choose the direction of the learning process by providing some variety of activities should increase engagement. Whereas providing security to the student assists in their ability to perform the task which builds confidence in the process. I like the idea of practice exams. I had a class once where the instructor gave us the final exam example on the first day of the class, it was like a baseline and as the class progressed there would be practice exams, on the specific course content for that week. It was a good guide for the expectations and generated engagement. This allowed for feedback to the instructor on areas that were not covered or were a bit unclear.
It will always be much easier to teach people who want to learn, but it's my job as an instructor to make it easier to learn, being in the field I'm partially used to teaching a big range of ages and backgrounds so its going to be amazing to apply this to my day to day life for instructing and field work
I learned that security and autonomy are very important to adult students. Giving them security and autonomy throughout the learning process will help keep them motivated.
Sometimes its easier to teach someone whos motivated then to teach someone whos not
Utilizing real life experiences in the clinical setting is important to engage motivation.
Security is the students feeling safe and comfortable in the learning environment and autonomy is the students sense of contro and free will.
The teacher has a very large part of brining the correct energy to class and trying to get the rest of the class to join in on the energy level and get excited for the new things they will be learning.
