Community College Course

Teaching a class at the community college level, particularly when there is a wide age range among adult students, presents different challenges from teaching in grades K-12. Adults approach learning differently than do children; they have varied reasons for wanting to learn and bring a range of perspectives and experiences to the classroom. Malcolm Knowles gained prominence for his attempts to develop a distinctive conceptual basis for adult learning based on andragogy (Smith, 2002). Androgogy is a self-directed approach, wherein learning is a response to real-world problems. Knowles' work represented a significant departure from the notion of "teaching people" toward "helping people learn."

There are biological differences in the range of learners for the hypothetical course that is the subject of this paper. Students who range in age from seventeen to their mid-twenties are maturing into full frontal lobe development. Their ability to see "the big picture"...
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