As a learner I feel that I am very "old fashioned". I learn best in a quiet setting where everyone is working on the same material and preferably in rows or at tables. When I am in a classroom where there are many different things going on I often get distracted, or when I finish the task at hand I have no idea what I just completed. I don't necessarily need a relationship between what I am doing and my life, but it helps if I can tie my activities to some aspect of life (i.e., history often repeats itself, science is life).
As far as presentation of materials I do better with a lecture format. I appreciate visual examples, but taking notes is a must for me to retain any information. The more that I study education the more that I realized many theorists are encouraging educators to move away from conventional teaching strategies, but I am a firm believer that those conventional strategies are the reason I was a successful student.
I believe that at the college level it is only necessary to understand the life outside of the classroom for students. The adult-learners that we are tutoring usually work jobs, have children and have other classes. It is impossible for anyone to be a superman/woman, so we must make sure that they understand our perspective of the college student. We have all been there and there is nothing that we can do about crazy schedules, we can however point out time-saving tips, study skills and other useful resources that may help our tutees to better deal with the obstacles that they may face while in college.
I love the lecture format with notes and a few visual aids myself. I love it even more when there are PowerPoint presentations provided online for me to print off, because then I can simply print those off and jot my notes down on them while having the visual aids at hand as well. I agree that there is life outside the classroom and we must take that into consideration while helping tutees. I have shared with several people how a calendar/daily agenda can be a life saver.
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