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Adult Learner Persistence
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Creating a Classroom
Learning Community –
The First Day of Class
by Dr. Sherry Nash
Trinity Valley Community College offers Adult Education classes for
approximately 850 students annually on its main campus in Athens, Texas
and on satellite campuses and sites in Terrell, Canton, Kaufman, and
Palestine, Texas.
“There’s no second chance to make a first impression!” I’ve
often heard that old adage, and it’s certainly true for adult learners
as they set sail on the sometimes scary sea of going back to school.
One of the most important things we do for our adult students is to help
them establish a Learning Community from the very first day of class.
Notice I said, “help them establish,” because creating a
classroom Learning Community is truly a partnership between teacher and
students. It’s not done to them, it’s done with them!
How do you work with students to do that? First, let them get to know
you, the teacher. One of the great things about teaching in adult education
is that you can “be yourself” – none of that “don’t
smile ‘til Thanksgiving” stuff! Tell them a little about
yourself -- about your other jobs, a hobby or something about your families – things
that will “resonate” with experiences in your student’s
lives. Communicating that you are a willing and approachable partner
with them in the learning process is also crucial, so be sure to give
students your email address and a phone number through which you can
be reached – an office number for your Adult Education program
is fine. Tell the students what you love about teaching them, and share
your enthusiasm about the work you will be doing together.
Second – get to know the students. Ask them to share out loud
with the class their goal(s) in coming back to school (especially goals
beyond GED), and find out about their Learning Style. (If this is not
done during your orientation, check the Internet for one of the many
available Learning Style surveys and use it during this first class period.)
Be sure to take notes – this is important information that can
help you, as the teacher, tailor the learning experiences to individual
students. Ask them to share something about themselves – full-
or part-time job? family members at home that they care for? things they
enjoy doing in their spare time? The wonderful by-product of getting
to know your students this way is that they are also getting to know
each other! The more they connect with commonalities in each other, the
more easily they grow into a “family” in the classroom.
Third, establish some Class “Norms” for how you will work
together. (Try to avoid the word “rules.”) Talk with the
students about what they would like the class experience to be like,
writing their responses on a piece of poster paper that can be left up
in the room. Typically, they will come up with things like this (or you
can steer the conversation to include):
- Respect each other (Ask what that looks like and sounds like to them.)
- Help each other (This may need some extra emphasis for students whose
cultural or personal understandings of “school” include
beliefs such as “do your own work” and “helping someone
else is considered cheating.”)
- Attendance and punctuality are important (Ask students to explain
why this is so, especially in light of #2 above. Helping students to
understand that their presence is important not just to themselves and
to you, the teacher, but to the other students in the class is a powerful
motivator in learner persistence!)
- Ask for help when you need it (There are no stupid questions! Encourage
them to ask each other for help if you aren’t available. Often,
adult students can explain things to each other better than the teacher
can!)
- Celebrate your successes! (Explain that you don’t need to wait
until you pass the GED to celebrate what you are accomplishing! Tell
students you will help them notice and cele-brate something every time
they come to class -- a Learning Journal form works great for this. Make
it an assignment to think about ways they (and their family members)
can do something nice for themselves to celebrate something they are
proud of – it may be that they manage to make it to class even
though their kids are home sick (because they had a good “back-up
plan”), or that they finally
learned the 7’s in the multiplication table! Celebrations don’t
have to be big or expensive – a sticker, a “high five,” a
small ice cream at the local Dairy Queen, or 30 minutes to watch TV while
someone else fixes dinner or does the dishes – these things go
a long way in keeping students motivated.)
As the list is created, ask students to write the norms down in their
own notebooks and even say them aloud to themselves or as a group (a
good multi-sensory learning strategy). Tell the students that when we
all (students and teacher) agree to work together in this way, we create
a Learning Community that makes the classroom a great place to be!
The last thing to make sure you do in establishing a Learning Community
on the first day of class is to actually LEARN SOMETHING! Make sure to
structure the time and activities so that every student can leave knowing
they worked together and learned something that day. Take the time to
emphasize what each student learned by asking them to write it down or
say it out loud to themselves or to another student in the class before
they leave. Encourage them to tell someone else outside of class what
they learned that day (and every day) – it’s a great learning/remembering
strategy, and it certainly reinforces a feeling of success that, in turn,
builds up the Learning Community mentality!
Time is a valuable commodity in the Adult Ed classroom, and when it
is spent creating a sense of Learning Community, there is a BIG
TIME pay off in learner persistence and achievement. Besides, it makes the
work a lot more fun for everyone involved!
About the Author
Dr. Sherry Nash has been a teacher and Instructional Coordinator with
the Adult Education Program of Trinity Valley Community College, Athens,
Texas, for the past 5 years. She is a nationally certified Power Path® system
user and coach, and also does teacher training in effective learning
strategies through the Texas GREAT Centers. Her bachelor’s degree
is from Southwestern University, and her graduate work was done at
UT Austin. Sherry also works part-time at her church as financial administrator
and minister of music.
For further information about ideas in this article, you can contact
her at snash@tvcc.edu.
 
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