MIND, MOTIVATION, AND MEANINGFUL LEARNING: Strategies for Teaching Adult Learners

Adults are attending college in record numbers every year. These students, many with families and careers, may have been away from an academic environment for many years and have unique needs in developing lifelong learning skills. Academic librarians have an important role as change agents in this dynamic learning environment through information literacy instruction, workshops, and individual consultations. Mind, Motivation, and Meaningful Learning: Strategies for Teaching Adult Learners provides a blueprint that academic librarians can apply to their instructional design that facilitates a change in students’ motivation and learning strategies. It provides the tools necessary to teach learners to identify, evaluate, and apply appropriate cognitive, learning, and motivation strategies based on course content and a deeper understanding of the metacognitive component of meaningful learning. Five chapters explore the theories behind adult learning, culminating in a seven-unit curriculum scalable to a variety of learning domains complete with lesson plans, activities, assessments of the learning goals, and student reflections. Mind, Motivation, and Meaningful Learning can help you identify the components of academic learning that contribute to high achievement; help students learn and practice effective learning and study strategies that lead to improved self-efficacy, self-regulation, and knowledge transfer; and improve instructional design for student, instructor, and academic teaching librarian success.