The Role Of The Adult Student In The Classroom

Many educators frequently lump together the traditional students and the non-traditional adult students as a single entity. However, there is a very distinct difference between the traditional student and the returning non-traditional adult student. In this group atmosphere, the adult student sometimes does not fit in well with the recent high school graduate and is too easily lost or ignored. The role of the adult student is to bring with him/her into the classroom a wealth of experience as well as a wealth of problems. These experiences can be both personal and work related. The injection of their experiences and many times their enthusiasm adds immensely to the flavor of the teaching environment as they can expand the material into new examples and applications. He/she can add to your repertoire a dimension that you may not have thought of. Educators, who do not recognize the multiple benefits brought in by the adult student, can lose many of those assets. Some of the problems of the adult student are not unlike those which the traditional or younger student faces; some however are very unique and are definitely more demanding. An example of the additional difficulty experienced by the adult student would be the need to provide for a family and at the same time gain an education. The determination of the adult student to find time to study and complete homework while achieving equal or higher grades is not lost on the traditional student. The adult students that we have been involved with typically have more incentive to learn. They bring a maturity and focus of purpose to the classroom. They understand the importance and the necessity of the educational process both from a work related benefit and from a personal improvement benefit. This focus makes an impression on the more traditional student, particularly as they work in teams. Here, the adult student becomes a teacher of the traditional student, and frequently a teacher of the instructor. Observations and conversations that we have had through the years with adult students will demonstrate the influence that the adult student can have. P ge 6.033.1 “Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright 2001, American Society for Engineering Education” Introduction The difference between the returning adult (RA) and the recent high school graduate (RHS) can be illustrated by use of the stimulus-response (S-R) formula. The S-R formula is most effective when applied to simple tasks or to situations in which there is little additional input to the stimulus that feeds into the final response. The RHS generally has little experience through which to filter a particular stimulus. Therefore the response is narrowly defined by the stimulus. However, a RA generally has acquired an array of direct and indirect experiences. Therefore, the same stimulus will interact with some experience and modify that stimulus which then may result in a very different response. These experiences (maturity) can be positive or negative. They can be positive in that they provide a larger number of viewpoints through which to view the situation. They can be negative in that they can narrow the viewing window. The accumulated experiences tend to close the mind to new concepts. If the experience has been to do something a particular way, the tendency will be to force every situation into that same method rather than considering something new. The assignment of students into teams presents an arena in which many of the interactions between the RHS and the RA are more visible and development of the team is enhanced. Both positive development and non-development or degradation of the performance of the team can be observed.