Monday, October 25, 2010

Adults Can't Learn???

Agelesslearner.com posted an interesting article that among other things stated, "Western society once believed adults didn't learn. Even today, if you ask a group why adults cannot learn, it may surprise you how many begin answering the question without challenging the premise. Unfortunately, many adults deny themselves what should be one of the most enriching parts of life because they assume they can't learn."

If this is the case then the adults who attend our classes have overcome a major hurdle and it is our pleasure to keep encouraging the learning. How do we do this? There are many different ways.

Giving them the learning in small bites; not trying to cram too much into a single class; adapting the class to the adults present.

Do you have ways you make this happen? Please share them with us. Make a comment below.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Pushing the Next Class

Getting students in the next class is important.
Nancy Hulverson posted in LERN:
"In our computer lab, we have a small wipe board at the front of the room. It has a label that says "Your next class is". The instructor writes the next class in the series down or the next logical class. We have an amazing number of people go from digital cameras to photography to Photoshop as an example, from this sign.
Once you have a student enjoying your program, most students just want to know what to do next. They already love you, they just don't know what to do. Just tell them! "
At this time when we have fewer students, in-class promotion is very important. The more students we retain the better for all of us.
If you don't know what the next class after yours is, please call you programmer.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

The All Important Roster

Before every class we send out the class roster. We do our best to keep it up to date, however lately, we have had a lot of people sign up at the last minute and don't have time to get the changes to the instructor. This means some students who have registered will show up to class but may not be on your roster.

As you check the names on your roster against those who are present, if a student says he/she has registered, just write down their name and contact information and pass it to us the next day. By far most of the time, the students have indeed registered.

If they are not on your roster and haven't registered they cannot stay in the class.

Two more things: the roster has your computer login information on it, and remember, there is private contact information on the roster that the students should not see. Please don't pass the roster around the class for them to check that they are present.