STUDENT ENGAGEMENT IN ADULT LEARNING
Student engagement occurs when "students make a psychological investment in learning. They try hard to learn what school offers. They take pride not simply in earning the formal indicators of success (grades), but in understanding the material and incorporating or internalizing it in their lives (Newmann, 1992)."
Engagement involves the active participation of students in the classrooms as well as in the teaching process. It has also been described as the willingness of to participate in routine school activities, such as attending class, submitting required work, and following teachers' directions in class.
All these point to one thing the teaching process can be a very “tedious and boring one”!. So it’s important that we find creative ways to actively involve the students.
If the regular teaching style can be “tedious and boring” to the young ones, how about if you are having to teach adults. Teaching adults can be much more tasking and requires more efforts on the part of the teacher.
Adults easily get uninterested (not any fault of theirs) especially when the teacher goes on and on without asking for their inputs or engaging them in discussions. This is because the adult mind has only a few hours for assimilation after which the brain will need to take a rest before it can take in more. It is also a well-known fact that learning by association helps assimilation, so introducing activities outside the subject being taught helps to keep adult students engaged and alert.
Here are few things I do to keep students engaged and interested during my trainings which you could find useful, you can also introduce some of your own; * Start classes informally. One thing I always do in my class is to start introduction with the use of nicknames as this creates an atmosphere of informality and it always works. * Incorporate