Engaging Adult Learner

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Engaging the Adult Learner by Student’s name Code+ course name Professor’s name University name City, State Date Engaging the Adult Learner Assignment INTRODUCTION Research has shown that most undergraduates usually study less, work more and take a long period of time to complete their degrees. This research conducted by Steel in the year 2010 revealed that only a quarter of the university students nowadays follow the “traditional” way of learning that involved full-time and residential learning. This poses a great challenge to the universities and other institutions of higher learning to rethink the undergraduate programs so that they can come up with a better program that offers distance education, part-time learning and even the crash programs that will enable a student to complete the course within the shortest duration possible. The group of “non-traditional” students comprises of members who are older than the “traditional” students. They prefer taking night classes because they spend their day working in companies and organizations. Most of them usually seek the knowledge to enhance their careers and jobs that they do. The teaching of these adult students is usually different from the teaching of the traditional and young learners. There are various factors that need to be put into consideration when teaching these non-traditional students. Among them is that the tutor should understand that adult learning is selective. This means that the adults will learn what is meaningful to them and what interests them. Their learning is inclined to what they think is beneficial and important to them (Rubenson, 2011, p. 49) Furthermore, the adult learning is usually self-directed. This means that the adults do take responsibility for their own learning. According to Malcolm Knowles, self-directed learning is a process through which people identify their
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