The course I am responsible for is 'blue collar' related. After dealing with the frustrations of retention, as every academician does, I've discovered some very useful and effective tools during this course.
This course helped me recognize that 'the basics', are still effective. Great communication skills, the willingness to listen and positive feed back still goes a long way.
Although it is obvious the cultural and age diversities each classroom undoubtedly has, the defining of just the 'age' differences in this course has opened a whole new approach to instruction for me. Focusing on the non-traditional student as well as the traditional one will be useful. Throughout most of our enrollment year and the recession that we are in, we have 'older' students trying to reset their lives by taking on another career.
This will assist with engaging them during the instruction. It gives them a sense of worth during the course as well as assists bridging the gap with the younger students by allowing them to share what has worked for them.
