Why Do I Need to Know About the Adult Learner?

As an adult education teacher, literacy provider, administrator, or other similar practitioner, your primary goal is to help each of your students/clients become better learners and to reach their goal. You will want to create an environment that welcomes and encourages them.

Remember, many adult students experience anxiety and even fear when beginning a program because they do not associate education with positive, inspiring experiences, but rather with negative experiences that often resulted in frustration and failure for them in the past. The first meeting or class is the single most critical time for you to engage the learner and assist him/her in successfully completing an ABE program. You want to be prepared. Let's take a look at what we know about Adult Learners.

Take a closer look!

Click on the picture to the left to access the article, "30 THINGS WE KNOW FOR SURE ABOUT ADULT LEARNING" by Ron and Susan Zemke (Innovation Abstracts Vol VI, No 8, March 9, 1984.) Print the article for your resource folder.

How can you use the information in the Zemke article to plan a better learning experience for your adult learners? Come up with 2 ideas and post them to the bulletin board.

Disclaimer: While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of this web-based training component, it is not an official publication of the Florida Department of Education.