I believe since the school caters to a wide variety of students -- age differences, some with jobs, full-time, part-time, some are parents, military veterans, etc -- with side a wide variety of students, it's important to understand each of their needs and hiow best to support and guide them in teaching.  Meet the students where they are in their lives, careers and potential caareers.

I tend to think of this concept when I hear people say that they "can't make the student do their work." Imagine the student's motivation like a teeter-totter. On one side you have a bucket of how they feel about themselves and on the other you have a bucket of how they think people feel about them. As instructor's we can't fill the first bucket, but we can fill the second bucket with enough praise that it tilts the seesaw and you dislodge the student from feeling like they're stuck in the mud.

Autonomy in the classroom gives adult students more ownership which in turn helps maintain motivation.

I think it might be helpful to have the students use some key words in their LMS profiles so we (the instructors) can more specifically cater to their needs in all of the classes. This might help withs some of the classes that aren't in the student's discipline directly. Like if we know someone wants to be a cinematographer, there are ways we can help them look at screenwriting in a way that makes the class more productive for them.

When I was a student, I found going over what type of work load was expected was a point of security for me.

A politician recently said that even his best students couldn't perform well when they were dealing with food insecurity and unstable housing. He was talking about middle school students, but the same applies to our grown up students. There's a difference between keeping your life lean enough to keep you hungry for success and not having the means to keep yourself from it adversely affecting your health.

Our school has both young and older students- some separated by decades. I've always noticed the different approaches to learning from these varied groups.

Adult education tends to prioritize problem solving over memorization because adults learn best when they can immediately see the relevance of what they're studying. Adult learners typically come to the classroom with a specific need, to solve a problem at work, or develop a skill for a career change. As a result, they're more motivated when lessons connect directly to tasks they'll actually perform.

"External rewards initiate the habit; internal rewards make it stick." This is what stuck out to me. That the combination of both is powerful. And this can be applied to education and everyday life. 

It often comes down to time for adult learners. Prioritizing themselves for long enough to engage with the school materials usually comes at the expense of something else in their life. This time crunch can make it seem like the students are putting off their work until the last possible minute, but in reality they often are doing as well as they can with the situation they have been dealt.