Accommodating the Needs of Adults in Teacher Education

Abstract

n October 1986, after taking a close look at the faces in our education classes, we discovered that many were showing telltale signs of aging. We also noticed some other things-many of our older students were making a career change (some were leaving highly paid positions), and nearly all were seeking more personal satisfaction from their work and better ways to combine their career and family interests. And, significantly, although we, the instructors found the adult students delightful in many ways, their dominance in our teacher preparation program intimidated the less-experienced, traditionalaged students, who were outnumbered two to one. Another problem-for the older studentswas the tremendous adjustment they had to make in their work and family responsibilities to attend day classes originally designed for full-time college students.With this in mind, we set about designing our first teacher preparation program for careertransition adults. Our first mistake was assuming our adult teacher preparation students were similar to our graduate student teachers who worked during the day and juggled work, family, and studies. We soon found out how wrong it was to make this assumption and how different our adult students were. Our second mistake was to assume that only minimal changes were needed to accommodate this new type of student. What We Knew About Becoming a Teacher In Mid-Life

Are We Violating Their Expectations? Instructor Communication Expectations of Traditional and Nontraditional Students

“…What about the nontraditional students who make up 42% of undergraduates today? These are students who typically work full-time, pay for their education, and have delayed higher education (Hensel, 1991;U.S. Department of Education, 2002).…”