Posts Tagged ‘adult students’
April 2 - More on Designing and Teaching Online Courses with Adult Students in Mind
By: Patti Shank, PhD, CPT in Online Education
It’s always important to help students be successful, but with returning adults, success often seems more elusive for a variety of reasons. They often have a hard time fitting schooling in with other life demands (including family obligations and work). In addition, many adult students are worried about their abilities as students and about learning in an online environment.
March 14 - Designing and Teaching Online Courses with Adult Students in Mind
By: Patti Shank, PhD, CPT in Online Education
Many of the learners in today’s online courses are adults who are returning to school to upgrade their qualifications. It’s worth considering what kinds of adult students are in your courses and what their needs are.
September 24 - Boosting a First-Time Online Adult Student’s Self-Esteem
By: Dawn M. Kaiser, PhD in Online Education
As professors, we all have seen first-time students who are so nervous that they do not even know where to begin, let alone how to achieve their educational goals. I am one of those lucky professors who works with adult students who are going back to school for a myriad of reasons, and are choosing to take online classes. Not only do these students need help with writing an academic paper, and how to submit an assignment to a dropbox, but their self-esteem and support system are sometimes lacking.
August 6 - Understanding Adult Learners’ Needs
By: Nachamma Sockalingam PhD in Teaching and Learning
Understanding learner needs is essential for providing quality education. One approach to understand learner needs is through the use of student evaluation questionnaires which allow us to collate student feedback or suggestions. A common argument against the use of student evaluations is that students do not know their own needs. However, many studies have shown student feedback/suggestions to be reliable and valid. If we do not even attempt to understand their needs, we may fail to recognize the support they require to be successful.
March 2 - Six Ways to Support Adult Online Learners
By: Rob Kelly in Online Education
Adult learners typically have very specific reasons for taking online courses and are usually highly motivated. They also bring a wealth of experience. However, being away from formal learning and having to adapt to the online learning environment can be quite challenging even for the most motivated and intelligent students.
January 25 - Tips for Teaching Adult Students
By: Brooks Doherty in Effective Teaching Strategies
With the number of non-traditional students growing, many educators have discovered that adult learners are fundamentally different than their younger counterparts in many ways. Yet, most instructors have been left to their own devices to figure out how best to reach these students who come to class with an entirely different set of challenges, demands and expectations, and generally at a much different level of maturity.
April 5 - Understanding the Unique Needs of Adult Learners
By: Christopher Hill in Distance Learning Administration
Returning adults, particularly those looking to complete degree work, demand online options, distance education programming, and a campus culture fitting their learning style. Bruce N. Chaloux, Ph.D., past president of the Sloan Consortium and a highly-respected authority in adult degree completion, discussed some of the unique needs of adult learners with Distance Education Report. What
October 27 - Why Being a Student Made Me a Better Teacher
By: Vickie Kelly, EdD in Effective Teaching Strategies
Congratulations! You’ve accepted a position as a professor, instructor, or lecturer. Now comes the hard part. Unless you have spent your professional career studying curriculum, instruction, assessment, online learning, classroom management, and the many other topics with which you now face, you have stepped into a whole new world. Your subject matter expertise or technical knowledge that got you the job is simply not enough.
June 14 - Using MP3s as a Teaching Tool for College English Classes
By: Vicki E. Phillips in Teaching and Learning
My recent foray into using MP3s to teach college level English classes came out of my need to reach more of my non-traditional students. I saw a trend developing where more adults than ever were seeking a college education or even returning to college to change careers, and it only followed that I had a responsibility as an instructor to try and reach these students. It also became apparent in my classroom that I wanted to not only reach, but to retain these non-traditional students who seemed to become easily frustrated with the more traditional lecture and textbook methods.
June 9 - Non-Traditional Students: Understanding Adult Learners’ Needs
By: Mary Bart in EdTech News and Trends
Students dropout of college for a variety of reasons – some are not ready for the academic rigors, while others leave to raise a family, get a job, or join the military. Many of these students are now in their 30s, 40s and 50s. They’re more mature, and they’re ready to come back and finish what they started. Is your school truly committed to do what it takes to attract and support these students through degree completion?
