As an experienced instructor teaching a completely new subject to adults, I feel that keeping an open mind in the classroom is very important. I taught high school career and work experience to teenagers for the last thirteen years until recently when I accepted an offer to teach in a vocational school for adults. When I retired from public education I trained as a jeweler with an accredited school in my city. I have continued making jewelry, but now have to learn many of the new projects being taught and some of the same ones that I learned all those years ago that I need practice on to be able to teach my adult students. I now am in a teacher training period, and slowly being able to teach the students that are enrolled. I have found that I need to use many of the techniques that I have used with my high school students with the adults in our program. This is rather refreshing, and challenging. I have also observed many of the behaviors that I used to deal with in our adults. I think keeping a journal is very useful for students. They can refer back to their notes on how to make something, write questions to ask during their next class, and even write down any feeligs that they would like to discuss with faculty. 

  Our program is individualized, and instructors work together with all students depending on what shift they are attending. This has it's rewards and challenges because we are trying to make standaridized practices for all our projects so that any teacher can teach any student the same way. Keeping a journal helps the students keep on track, and helps to eliminate frustration for both students and teachers because they feel like they can recall what went on from one calss to another.