Before you ever stand in front of a classroom full of adult learners, you’ll need to understand the best way to approach their needs in order to help them to achieve success. While there are certain techniques that work best for children, the same holds true when presenting information to adults.
Adults are visual learners, so it’s important to use as many visual aids as possible. One of the reasons that college students don’t often do well in a traditional lecture course is that, while they do take in some information when presented in an aural environment, they do much better when they can actually see what’s being explained.
By its very nature, an I.T. class offers learning on the visual plane, since students will be working with PCs. Additional aids would include a whiteboard or chalkboard, LCD presentation and textbook graphics. Be sure not to focus for too long on any one visual aid, or their attention will stray. Try to spend no more than a few minutes on each item before moving on to something else. Since the adult attention span is only about 10 to 12 minutes long, the learning environment should be constantly changing in its approach.
In addition to gaining more from a visual presentation, adults also do very well in a hands-on environment. Therefore, it’s best to build classroom projects into the learning process. If they can apply what they’re learning as it’s being presented, then they’ll stand a far greater chance of understanding and remembering the information. This will also give them the opportunity to ask critical questions about the functions and operations that they’ll be required to perform as the project progresses.
Another thing to keep in mind is that many adults are intimidated by computerized equipment and will be hesitant to touch the keyboard, for fear that they’ll “break” something. Great patience and the assurance that anything that they might do can be “undone” will be required in most cases. This will especially hold true for much older adults, who may not have had previous exposure to such equipment. The bottom line is that they’re going to be nervous, and many of them will have the added fear of being unable to understand and retain information due to their age, so take it slow and easy, and don’t minimize or invalidate their concerns.