Older students may want to pursue further their college education out of a desire to improve themselves or expand their job opportunities. They may have a professional need to acquire specific skills. Some seniors also return to education. This decision can be driven by the desire to learn something new and to be engaged in the community.
When returning to education, older students often feel guilty for various reasons. Some may think it’s selfish to focus on furthering their education while they have to care for others. This is particularly true for people with aging parents.
Guilt may also come because they don’t want to spend money to pay for education, when that money could go towards retirement instead or be saved for their children.
Each individual has different factors that could stand in the way of furthering their education at a later age in life. However, various strategies can empower them and help them to overcome these challenges.
How To Help Empower Older Students
Utilizing the following strategies can help older students to get through the barriers in the way of their academic success.
1. Provide Helpful Resources
Resources that can help older students who want to further their education include online courses, books, workshops, and the like. A resource like an online course is particularly powerful for helping them to build new skills at their own convenience.
This can help a great deal when they have to juggle work and study. They have more flexibility when it comes to where and when to learn.
Free essay examples: Another resource that can help to empower them and save time is utilizing free essay examples. They may have an assignment to write, an essay about guilt or other similar topics.
If they want to learn how to describe guilt in writing, these free essays can be enlightening. Such essays can help the student to structure their essays, to understand the assignment, to be inspired, and more. If a suitable essay isn’t available, a student can ask a professional writer to write a quality, unique essay within a certain deadline.
2. Encourage Self-Reflection
Some self-reflection is important when it comes to overcoming guilt. Guilt is often a result of self-doubt and negative self-talk. It may be necessary to reflect on what is holding them back and challenge their self-limiting beliefs. Guilt and shame can be debilitating and negatively affect their state of mind and their potential to achieve their academic goals.
Today lifelong learning is essential as so much change takes place every day. Research also shows the importance of keeping the brain sharp while aging. Educators need to help older students to realize the importance of continued education and its many benefits for them. Education can empower them and reduce their social exclusion.
3. Help Them to Set Realistic Goals
Initial assessment and goal-setting procedures can help older students to set achievable goals. If they know what they need to learn, they can implement a plan to enhance their experience. They can take control of their learning and learn in a way that suits them best. They become active rather than passive learners.
Planning may start by breaking larger goals down into smaller, more manageable ones. It is less overwhelming to work towards realistic goals. They will feel a sense of achievement in reaching a goal and more motivation to reach the next goal.
4. Facilitate Hands-On Learning
Many adults prefer to participate in projects and learn in a hands-on way. When teaching them, educators need to utilize projects and real-world scenarios. Adults want to apply what they learn and see what they can do with their knowledge in real life.
Internships, projects, and job shadowing can help. When learning is hands-on, students can see its relevance to their lives. They are not just learning for the sake of learning but for a specific purpose. If they see that what they learn can have a positive impact when they apply it, they have more motivation to learn.
5. Learning Should Fully Engage the Senses
Older students can find it more difficult to learn than younger ones due to a lack of neuroplasticity in the brain. For this reason, it is important to fully engage their senses. They often don’t do that well in a lecture-style environment. It helps them to have many different ways to learn, such as podcasts, videos, documents, etc.
When they can guide their own learning, they are more engaged in the process. For example, videos can help them pace their learning. They have the option of watching again if they don’t understand a certain segment. Quizzes within videos can also check their understanding.
6. Repetition is Important
Older adults need opportunities to practice new skills. It can take time to fully grasp what they need to learn. Repetition is important to help them retain knowledge. Practice should take place in an environment where they feel they can make mistakes without judgment.
8. Encourage Peer Support
Learning from peers can be empowering for older students. Peer mentoring and group work can help them to feel more connected. They can share their skills and knowledge and vice versa. This creates more of a sense of community.
Peers can give one another more than just academic support. They can gain emotional and social support from them too. Online forums and discussion groups are often a vital part of online education.
9. Give Continuous Feedback
Ongoing assessment procedures and feedback on progress can help older students to learn. If they immediately see where their knowledge is lacking, they will want to fill the gaps.
If they want to be successful at work, they need to know where they lack and how they can improve their performance. With continuous feedback that helps them to develop their skills, they develop more self-confidence.
10. Provide Access to Financial Help
There is no age limit to receiving federal aid student aid. Older students who want to go back to university can also complete the FAFSA form and apply within the deadline.
There are a number of different federal grants, such as the Pell Grant, that are for students of any age. Many private grants don’t require applicants to be a certain age. Grants are available for many different types of individuals, including women over the age of 35 with a low income.
Some Challenges Older Students Face
- Time: Finding time to learn can be a challenge. Older students may have full-time jobs and children or other dependents that rely on them.
- Self-doubt: They may think they are too old to learn. After all, their brains aren’t as flexible as those of younger students. However, many aging students still do well, despite this apparent limitation.
- Guilt: Overcoming guilt and shame may be necessary as they may feel they don’t deserve to continue with their education.
- Financial barriers: A lack of finances can get in the way of adult education.
- Lack of support: They don’t do as well if they don’t have the emotional, physical, or social support they need.
Conclusion
To advance the careers and lives of adult students, educators need to understand their importance to universities and how complex their lives can be. Providing quality learning experiences for them involves looking at various factors that could hold them back.
Empowering them through education helps them to deal with guilt, keeps their brains sharp, and teaches them new, relevant skills. Education can have transformational power for them in their own lives and at a societal level.
Want To Make Life Easier?
Check out the caregiving products we love!
Leave a Reply