Creating Effective Presentations for Adult Learners

Well, hello,

often as educators,

we are excellent at putting together a

presentation that is exciting for our students,

giving them new experiences and engaging them with interesting visual elements,

creating presentations for adult learners though

such as for professional development sessions or conferences,

it differs greatly and that's what we are going to talk about today.

Adult learners are inherently different from our younger learners.

But in what ways and how can we know how

to craft our presentations to better suit our adult learners?

Well, we have Malcolm

Knowles to think,

see Malcolm Knowles put together something called the theory of Andra

Goji, which is an adult learning theory that

gives us five assumptions about our adult learners and

that can help us in our planning and preparation

of presentations.

The first assumption is the idea of self concept, younger students are dependent,

but adult learners move towards being self directed and independent,

which is really helpful,

meaning that we can give our adult learners resources

and they are able to take it from there.

They are not as dependent as our younger students

next up. And this one is so vital experience.

We create experiences for our younger learners,

but adults already have treasure troves of experiences that

can benefit the entire learning community when tapped into.

Not only that it can help them learn new things better

and more easily when we do tap into those experiences.

The third assumption is readiness to learn adult learners want to learn,

they're ready to learn things that are relevant to their immediate experiences,

which is really exciting for us when we're used to standing in front

of high schoolers who might not want to be in class that day.

Next step is orientation to learning,

which is just a fancy way of saying that

adult learners want to apply what they've learned.

They are ready to take that relevant content that they've

learned and to apply it to their everyday lives.

And the final and fifth uh assumption of adult learners is motivation,

which is so cool

adult learners have a sense of urgency to learn, what helps them

and for educators especially they want to help their students

and so whatever helps them can also help their students,

which is really exciting, they're gonna be motivated to learn.

So that's great news for us. But what does that mean when creating presentations?

Well, I have a few best practices to share with you.

It's not comprehensive but it will get you started.

First. We need to tap into those valuable stores of experiences.

Our adult learners bring to the table, ask questions, serve up discussion,

enlist colleagues to speak,

who have experience in a particular topic that is super helpful next.

Because adult adults learn so well when they want or need to learn,

let them have a say in professional development topics,

give out a survey or have conversations but give them input on what

you have to share in your presentation next.

And this has to do with the aesthetics of your visual presentation.

Keep your visual presentation simple.

There's no need for a bunch of extra frills and animations.

Adults don't care about that if the information is invaluable to them.

So spend your prep time on something more valuable

and last but definitely not least lean into how immediate the application

of the learning will be and use that to guide your content

next up. In order to truly view each adult learner's experiences as valuable.

We need to reduce and eliminate bias in our presentations.

And cultural,

ethnic and gender biases are pervasive in our culture and it

can negatively affect a presentation in a learning community through alienation

and even invalidation.

So as presenters, we must be aware of the biases within ourselves as well as those as

that might infect our adult learning communities. We have to be aware of it.

If we want to build healthy learning environments,

we need to take measures that reduce and eliminate bias.

And here's how that can be done

when preparing a presentation.

One,

keep content of the meeting relevant to the

topic reducing rabbit holes and tangential references.

Even for humor's sake, will not only reduce bias through a avoidance,

it can also keep your presentation professional and credible.

Next, listen to everyone and value what they have to say,

ensure procedures and practices in the group work

in a way so that everyone feels comfortable,

valuable and heard.

And lastly reflecting on our own biases is so important.

Use a free online bias test or um take time to reflect on

yourself and how you view others around you that are different from you.

I hope that you've learned something today to

help you prepare for your next presentation.

Thank you for watching.

Creating Effective Presentations for Adult Learners

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