A presentation designed to orient new faculty to the learning needs and interests of graduate and continuing education students at Emmanuel College.

1. Graduate and Professional Programs: Preparing to Teach

3. Thought Experiment

4. Tips: The First Day

6. Students take one course at a time

9. Thought Experiment Imagine You and your students are coming to class after a full day at work. The class lasts from 6:00 to 10:00 in the evening. How might this affect the students’ ability to learn? … Your ability to teach? What could you do to help everybody get the most out of the experience?

10. Thought Experiment Imagine Your “students” are adults. They have years of experience with life and work. How might this influence the approach you take in your teaching? … How you interact with your students?

12. Learn best by drawing on prior experience (even errors)

13. Want to help set the direction for their learning

14. Are most interested in things of immediate relevance to work and/or personal lives

15. Prefer problem-centered over content-oriented learning

16. Respond better to internal versus external motivatorsMalcolm Knowles (1968)

18. Ask questions and elicit thoughts before lecturing

19. Break long presentations up into 15-20 minute chunks

20. Vary the texture of class by interspersing mini-lectures with discussions, case studies, debates, group work, simulations, and other active learning strategies

22. Reveal something about yourself, including professional experience relevant to the course

23. Identify the value and importance of the subject (especially why you value the subject)

24. Establish climate and routine (chair arrangement, breaks, etc.)

25. Set expectations and provide administrative information by reviewing the syllabus

26. Introduce the subjectAdapted from Dee Fink, University of Oklahoma

28. How might you adapt the lesson plan to meet the needs of this particular group?

29. How does the work for this week build upon that for the previous week (and foreshadow work to come)? What can you do to help students know where they are in this learning process?