NUTSHELL NOTES "Teaching tips in a nutshell" - The University of Colorado at Denver's One-page Newsletter for Teaching Excellence

"Adult learner" refers to people trying to fit in an education around adult lives, adult responsibilities, and adult problems that most young students living in dorms and attending a residential campus simply do not have, despite the fact that they are legally "adults." Concurrent lives of adult learners include ongoing career obligations, raising teenagers, caring for elderly parents and even dealing with job layoffs. At CU-Denver, we have both "adult learners" and younger undergraduates, and we have to serve classes that are mainly one, the other, or about equal mixes of both.

Traditional undergraduates on a resident campus can go back to their dorms or to the student lounges and work into wee hours of the night in study groups. Campuses that cater to night students won't have dorms or departmental spaces like a "chemistry lounge" where students can come together at all hours. Many of our students have other responsibilities that must be attended to, and they won't have all night and every weekend to devote to studies. One who teaches our students must pay attention to using class time extremely well and insuring that as much mastery of material as possible can take place in class. We have to be very well organized and know clearly what can be realistically assigned and what we must do during class time.

For the young undergraduate who may still lack clear visions of why they are in school, motivation is essential. On the other hand, when we work with "adult learners," motivation is a lesser problem. The latter have fit us into their busy lives on their own nickels, so they are already motivated. Most demand to be taught and to leave with tangible knowledge. They have a naturally serious bent because they, and often their families, sacrifice a lot to further their educations. In our classes, we have some students who may have more experience in a special topic that we are teaching than we do. This is not a situation to fear, but rather is one to celebrate! When we learn how to invite and use that expertise in an appropriate way, we can enrich ourselves and the whole class beyond anything we could do by ourselves with "traditional" students. Maybe the term "adult learner" is a poor word choice, but it certainly has profound implications.

Aside from the fact that we do face the teaching of different kinds of students than colleagues on more traditional campuses, both we and these colleagues often fail to appreciate the profound differences between faculty and students. Differences are demonstrated on the Myers-Briggs inventory, which describes approaches to socialization, (extroversion vs. introversion) gathering of information (sensing vs. intuition), decision-making (thinking vs. feeling), and evaluating information (judging vs. perceiving).

Faculty tend to be more inclined toward introversion, intuition, and judging than the general populace. Small wonder that we run into difficulty when we believe our students will happily learn material in the way we and our colleagues would learn it. Our students are different from other students—and from us too! How can we reach our diverse students? We can use multiple instructional methods to address the many needs that are present in our CU-Denver classes.
Myers-Briggs Contrasts

 

And now... for all of you preparing for the holidays...

A Martha Stewart Holiday Planning Calendar

December 1 - Blanch carcass from Thanksgiving turkey. Spray-paint gold, turn upside down and use as a sleigh to hold Christmas cards.

December 2 - Have Mormon Tabernacle Choir record outgoing Christmas message for answering machine.

December 3 - Using candle wick and handgilded miniature pine cones, fashion cat-o-nine-tails. Flog gardener.

December 4 - Repaint Sistine Chapel ceiling in ecru, with mocha trim.

December 5 - Get new eyeglasses. Grind lenses yourself, catch slow tortoise and carve the frames.

December 6 - Fax family Christmas newsletter to Pulitzer committee for consideration.

December 7 - Debug Windows '97

December 10 - Align carpets to adjust for curvature of the Earth.

December 11- Lay Faberge egg.

December 12 - Take dog apart. Disinfect. Reassemble.

December 13 - Collect dentures. They make excellent pastry cutters, particularly for decorative pie crusts.

December 14 - Install plumbing in gingerbread house.

December 15 - Replace air in mini-van tires with Glade "holiday scents" in case tires are shot out at mall.

December 17 - Child-proof the Christmas tree with garland of razor wire.

December 19 - Adjust legs of chairs so each Christmas dinner guest will be same height when sitting at his or her assigned seat.

December 20 - Dip sheep and cows in egg whites and roll in confectioner's sugar to add a festive sparkle to the pasture.

December 21 - Drain city reservoir; refill with mulled cider, orange slices, allspice and cinnamon sticks.

December 22 - Float votive candles in toilet tank.

December 23 - Seed clouds for white Christmas.

December 24 - Do annual good deed-- go to several stores, be seen engaged in last-minute Christmas shopping, thus making many people feel less inadequate than they really are.

December 25 - Bear son. Swaddle. Lay in color-coordinated manger scented with homemade potpourri.

December 26 - Organize spice racks by genus and phylum.

December 27 - Build snowman in exact likeness of God.

December 31 - New Year's Eve! Give colleagues their resolutions. Call a friend in each time zone of the world as the clock strikes midnight in that country.