I did not assume that the students were internally motivated, even though they proved to be so, which is why I made sure each student had a clear view of the board and PowerPoint presentation I had created and I kept a 'third eye' on their attention to the material, noting that they were following along with the manual and asking them questions. The fact that I had used the software myself and was quite familiar with it gave me an ease in presenting the material. Not only did I know the material well enough to deviate from a pre-planned script, I could also interweave humorous anecdotes into the presentation, and make the dryer sections of my talk more human and interesting. Combined with the visual reinforcement of the PowerPoint, this created a personal rapport between the students and me.
The class was also frustrated by the requirement placed upon them by the organization's leadership that they had to receive an examination in the course content, given they felt they had already devoted a great deal of time to learning about the program. They were eager to get back to work and put what they had learned into action. They disliked being treated like students who had to be 'watched' to ensure that they had learned 'correctly,' and felt (in my opinion justifiably) that the real test of knowledge comes in the workplace, with a technical skill like operating a computer program. Yet despite the resistance to this organizational demand, I tried, through my personal qualities and the respect I had generated amongst all of the learners, including the student...
I think my lack of intimidating presence, my humanness as an instructor and my stress that it was fine to make mistakes given they could be easily undone was well-suited to the similarity of ages of all of the participants and high motivation of the students. Respect and a level of seriousness, with some sense of 'fun' acted as a facilitator to learning and broke down any tension between the class and other persons in the organization, which had been generated by the unfair pressures placed upon the staff because of the outdated system. The class syllabus overall, was probably excessively programmed, in terms of its structure, and the material could have been compressed into one day. It should have possessed more interactive components rather than using a paper manual given that the course was designed to teach how to use an interactive computer system. However, despite these circumstances over which I had no control, I overcame any resistance that my status as an adult teacher and the course requirements and content might have provoked, and all of us as a class created as an engaging a classroom environment as possible.
Adult learners
