Adults approach influenced by past experience
Hi, Im Corinne, I have been teaching at a vocational tech school for 16 years. This course will help me with the challenge of teaching adult students with past experience and bad habits that have been formed. Re-teaching is often more difficult then teaching a person with no experience.
I have a student who worked for a temp/reassignment firm before coming to culinary School. She probably new more than I did about a lot of the HR issues we discussed in class. I found it helpful, as did her fellow students, to get some real-world insight from her at the end of a discussion. Where she was able to learn was in applying her corporate situations to restaurants.
Hi Paul,
Good use of a in class resource. Our students have so many life experiences that it is a joy to use these experiences when they are relevant to that day's discussion.
Gary
As often, adult learners challenge what we teach them because they'd previosuly learned something a different way.
An ex-military had questioned the way I set up a film budget, as it was inconsistent with the way he had filled out strict government requisitions.
In that case, there was no real conflict except that the student was comparing apples to oranges (a film budget to a military requisition). The individual elements were the same (desc, qty, unit cost, unit of measure, etc.), but the semantic memory was out of context.
We were able to discuss the application of the film budget in a way that allowed him to stretch himself outside of his rigid training.
Hi Joe,
Thank you for this great example. This is what understanding and meeting the diverse learning components of adults is all about. You were able to keep this person engaged and using his skills even when they were quite different from what you were teaching. Good job of customizing instruction.
Gary
I find that past experience of adult leaners to be very helpful in the class room. I ask them to relate their personnel experience with the current lab pratice. i use many examples from my own experience to get all students to see the lab activity in a different light.
Hi Henry,
One of the things I really enjoy about teaching adults is that I get to learn about and benefit from their life experiences. I am always amazed by what they have done in the lives and I get to learn about it.
Gary
One of my duties is to read student papers and provide feedback. I can use my own background from being in school so many years and writing scores and scores and scores of papers to help students if they are stuck, don't know where to go in a paper, or need ideas. Being in the midst of writing a paper can be like a tree amidst the forest--no perspective. It helps to have someone with objective give them a little push.
Cecilia,
You are a great resource for the students as you provide this service. Fresh eyes really help in terms of making suggestions about both content and context of papers.
Gary
Dr. Gary Meers
