Staying motivated

Practical considerations

This section provides some practical considerations regarding participant motivation.

1. Make materials relevant. In practice, it is often not feasible to develop an individual curriculum for every learner. However, it is certainly possible to adjust the contents of one’s classes so that they are at least more relevant to older populations in a general sense. For example, topics commonly used in teaching materials aimed at younger adults (e.g., ‘school’, ‘my future career’) are not necessarily interesting, as they bear little relevance to older adults. Conversely, subjects that are also relevant to older adults (e.g., ‘my hobbies’), are much more interesting, as they stimulate participants to learn vocabulary on a topic they are already interested in and which they have experience with.

2. Experiential learning techniques. Older adults by definition have had more years to build up experience with learning. As such, it may be prudent to utilize experiential learning techniques (e.g., problem solving activities, peer-helping, group discussions) that make use of this pre-existing knowledge, as these have been noted to be beneficial for motivation (Kong 2021).

References

• Kong (2021). The Role of Experiential Learning on Students’ Motivation and Classroom Engagement

Further reading

• Kolb, David A. 2015. Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Second edition. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education LTD.