Adapting Your Teaching to Older Adult Learners

In planning your teaching for LLI, it may be helpful to keep specifically in mind the typical needs, special gifts, and circumstances of learners aged 50 and over. Here is some advice culled from experienced teachers of older adults:

1. Pay attention to basic accessibility issues. Make sure the classroom is navigable and uncluttered. Above all, since over 50% of adults in this age range have impaired hearing-and/or vision, make certain you can be heard and seen.
2. Give your students the opportunity to tell you about their backgrounds, life experiences, and travels. 
3. Use your knowledge of students’ backgrounds to draw out experiences relevant to the discussion.
4. Foster connections and community within the classroom. Learn names as fast as you can. Offer the occasional opportunity to discuss a point in pairs or small groups. Build in stretch breaks or switch up activities to change the pace. Have a good laugh together.
5. Resist the pressure to cover too much material too fast. Allow time to assimilate, reflect on, and apply what is learned.
6. Avoid (or explain) academic jargon. Keep in mind that your audience is not made up of your professional peers but reflects a broad range of backgrounds.
7. Be strategic and selective about what you expect participants to read outside of class, and if you do assign required reading, make sure that  it gets adequately discussed in class. 
8. Ask questions or request feedback to make sure your students are hearing and following you. 
9. Pace the class to allow the opportunity for participants to ask questions of their own. Note that adult learners ask a lot of questions; an instructor who invites class participation might expect 20-30 minutes of a 90 minute class to involve student questions. 
10. If you use PowerPoint, employ bullet points and brief phrases in readable fonts to make the important ideas stand out. Avoid dense blocks of text or busy, distracting graphics. 
11. It’s better to let class out a little early if discussion has run its course than to run over your allotted time. Older students will need a breather between long classes and a little more time to get to the next destination.