Teaching Adult Learners

Most of us spend our lives teaching kids. When we plan staff development activities, we need to remember that we are dealing with adults and that they often learn in ways different than our everyday students. The following resources help planners adapt to the differences.

•How Teachers Learn Best by Jamie McKenzie. The author stresses that "after two decades of providing software classes to teachers, we need to explore different approaches — those honoring key principles of adult learning while placing both curriculum and literacy ahead of software and technology."

•Excerpt about Adult Learning from International Society for Technology in Education's "Administrative Solutions Guide for Handheld Technology in Schools". Authors David Pownell and Gerald D. Bailey discuss that teachers not only need technical skill instruction, but significant help understanding how to implement the technology into the classroom.

•Learning Strategies by Jackie Dobrolvny. The author explores the ways that adult learners can use metacognition to enhance their learning. When participants understand how they best learn, they can better absorb the information.