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One of the biggest challenges I faced as I grew into adulthood was learning how to deal with the fact that the word is full of uncertainty. I remember being a kid and being obsessed with the rules of games, with making things fair, with carving everything into this and not-this. From what I know of such things, that’s a pretty standard developmental stage for children. And one of the conundrums of adulthood is having to make decisions when we don’t have all of the relevant information.
Of course, one way to approach that is to try to gather as much data as possible beforehand, but while that’s often useful, it isn’t always possible. Sometimes, the information isn’t available. Or you don’t know everything that …
Continue reading Learning to Live With Uncertainty
I teach a quite a few different workshops, from sex & shame to sex-positivity to polyamory to BDSM and other sexual practices. And there’s one in particular that often gets some interesting reactions.
How to Be a Top Presenter is my workshop on how to teach workshops and classes. I developed it because I saw a lot of teachers and presenters who knew their subject, but simply didn’t know how to teach well. Often, they would use exercises and tools that didn’t suit their topic or the audience. Sometimes, the workshops were badly planned or simply didn’t flow. What I’ve noticed, though, is that whenever I announce that I’m offering this workshop, I often get a response along the lines of “Wow. That’s so …
Continue reading Teaching People How to Teach
One of the things that I’ve noticed in many of the classes, seminars and workshops that I’ve taken is that a lot of teachers don’t seem to understand how to create and use objectives. It’s easy to dismiss them as unnecessary or as buzzwords, but I’ve found that they have a lot to offer.
When I’m talking about objectives in a teaching context, I’m talking about the goals that I hope and plan to meet. In a sense, they’re the minimum that I’m willing to aim for: if my learners meet the objectives, I consider that a success. Of course, I hope that they do more than that but that’s not always possible. So one of the reasons I use objectives is that they help …
Continue reading Using Objectives to Plan a Workshop
After posting Motivation in Adult Education yesterday, I got an email from a reader who pointed out that it’s important to provide information that the learners need, and that’s not always easy when they’re sent to a required class by a supervisor. And I have to say that I fully agree. This is part of what I mean when I talk about relevance.
I think it’s safe to say that everyone has had the experience of being in a class of some sort and wondering what the use of being there is. Sometimes, especially in high school or colleges, the answer is that the course is a requirement or that you need to take it in order to understand the next course. But those are …
Continue reading Using a Needs Assessment to Build Relevance
One of the most important topics for educators to understand is learner motivation. While it’s certainly a concern for any teacher, it’s especially important for those of us who teach adults, for a few different reasons.
First, in many situations, adults have chosen to be in our classes. Even when someone is taking a required course (for example, a class on business software that they need for their job), they often are in a position to choose from among several options. As a result, if they find a particular teacher unappealing they will “vote with their feet.” Negative reviews on a website or in a community can have a lasting impact on our success as teachers.
Second, when learners are motivated, they become more engaged …
Continue reading Motivation in Adult Education
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