Friday, June 22, 2012

Teaching Non-Traditional Students in the Library

Non-traditional students can be the most rewarding ones to teach in the library.  They often have more questions, are more lively, and seem to be more grateful for library instruction.

This week I taught a class full of non-traditional students.  I uploaded my outline presentation to Slideshare and titled it "Library Research" on the presentation, though the more accurate title may be: "TGE 0199: Library Instruction for Non-Traditional Students."  These students, most of them anyway, had to earn a GED in order to make it to college. This class was helping them transition into college.

See the presentation below:
We used the Cephalonia Method during our tour.  The questions given to students were color coded to correspond to the different floors of the Library.  I printed out call numbers to specific books and maps that helped to answer some of the questions; these I handed to students and coached them in finding the materials along the way.

How do you teach non-traditional students?  Do you ever teach classes that consist only of non-traditional students?  What are their strengths? 

On the whole I enjoye teaching the non-traditional students, because they seem more attentive, ask more questions, and are glad to learn in most cases.

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