Hello everyone! My name is Ladek and my guest for today is Dr. Ayelet Zur-Nayberg. She is the Director of Adult Student Success at the Colorado Community College System (CCCS), where he has been working for two years. She is responsible for developing and implementing policies, programs, and initiatives that support the academic and career goals of adult learners across 13 colleges and 40 campuses.
Ayelet is passionate about enhancing the quality and accessibility of higher education for all learners, especially those who face barriers and disadvantages. She has been nominated for several awards that recognize her work and efforts to advance the Latinx community and the use of innovative pedagogy in Colorado.
In this ‘inclusive’ conversation Dr. Ayelet and I talk about
00:00 › Start
02:09 › Adulting—We discuss the importance of adult learners and the significant role they play in the community college ecosystem, especially given the shrinking population of traditional college-age students
06:01 › Toughing It Out There—Dr. Ayelet then outlines the primary challenges faced by adult learners, from scheduling to recognition of prior learning. We also cover systemic barriers that hinder adult learner progress and steps being taken to address them
20:10 ›Strategizing—Dr. Ayelet then discusses strategies for recruiting and retaining adult learners, focusing on the need for transparent communication regarding schedules, costs, and potential returns on investment. This also includes the importance of rebranding the community college experience to make it more appealing and accessible to adult learners
33:51 ›Inclusiving—Finally, we discuss the significance of creating a supportive and peer-inclusive environment for non-traditional learners, emphasizing the need for tailored approaches to tutoring and learning resources.
Subscribe for the latest news, practice and thought leadership at eLearnMagazine.com
Hello everyone! My name is Ladek and my guest for today is Dr. Ayelet Zur-Nayberg. She is the Director of Adult Student Success at the Colorado Community College System (CCCS), where he has been working for two years. She is responsible for developing and implementing policies, programs, and initiatives that support the academic and career goals of adult learners across 13 colleges and 40 campuses.
Ayelet is passionate about enhancing the quality and accessibility of higher education for all learners, especially those who face barriers and disadvantages. She has been nominated for several awards that recognize her work and efforts to advance the Latinx community and the use of innovative pedagogy in Colorado.
In this ‘inclusive’ conversation Dr. Ayelet and I talk about
00:00 › Start
02:09 › Adulting—We discuss the importance of adult learners and the significant role they play in the community college ecosystem, especially given the shrinking population of traditional college-age students
06:01 › Toughing It Out There—Dr. Ayelet then outlines the primary challenges faced by adult learners, from scheduling to recognition of prior learning. We also cover systemic barriers that hinder adult learner progress and steps being taken to address them
20:10 ›Strategizing—Dr. Ayelet then discusses strategies for recruiting and retaining adult learners, focusing on the need for transparent communication regarding schedules, costs, and potential returns on investment. This also includes the importance of rebranding the community college experience to make it more appealing and accessible to adult learners
33:51 ›Inclusiving—Finally, we discuss the significance of creating a supportive and peer-inclusive environment for non-traditional learners, emphasizing the need for tailored approaches to tutoring and learning resources.
Subscribe for the latest news, practice and thought leadership at eLearnMagazine.com
This is the eLearn podcast. If you're passionate about the future of learning, you're in the right place. The expert guests on this show provide insights into the latest strategies, practices,
and technologies for creating killer online learning outcomes. My name's Ladek, and I'm your host from Open LMS. The eLearn Podcast is sponsored by eLearn Magazine,
your go -to resource for all things online learning. Click -by -click how -to articles, the latest in edtech, spotlight on successful outcomes and trends in the marketplace. Subscribe today and never miss a post at elearnmagazine .com and Open LMS,
a company leveraging open -source software to deliver effective, customized and engaging learning experiences for schools, universities, companies and government. governments around the world since 2005.
Learn more at openlms .net. Hi there, my name's Ladek, and my guest for today is Dr. Ayelet Zur-Nayburg, who's the Director of Adult Student Success at the Colorado Community College System,
where she's been working for over two years. She's responsible for developing and implementing policies, programs, and initiatives that support the academic and career goals of adult learners across 13 colleges and four 40 campuses.
Ayelet is passionate about enhancing the quality and accessibility of higher education for all learners, especially those who face barriers and disadvantages. She has been nominated for several awards that recognize her work and efforts to advance the Latinx community and the use of innovative pedagogy in Colorado.
In this inclusive conversation, Dr. Ayelet and I talk about the importance of adult learners and the significance significant role they play in the community -college ecosystem, especially given the shrinking population of traditional college -age students.
Dr. Ayelet then outlines the primary challenges faced by adult learners from scheduling to recognition of prior learning. We also cover systemic barriers that hinder adult learner progress and steps being taken to address them.
Dr. Ayelet then discusses strategies for recruiting and retaining adult learners. focusing on the need for transparent communication regarding schedules, costs, and potential returns on investment. This also includes the importance of rebranding the community college experience to make it more appealing and accessible to adult learners.
Finally, we discuss the significance of creating a supportive and peer -inclusive environment for non -traditional learners, emphasizing the need for tailored approaches to tutoring and learning resources.
And remember, we record this podcast live so that we can interact with you, our listeners in real time. So don't be surprised when you hear Dr. Ayelet and I answer questions and react to comments as they come in. If you'd like to join the FunHour every week on LinkedIn,
on Facebook, on YouTube, on Instagram, on X, just come over to elearnmagazine .com and subscribe. Now, I give you Dr. Ayelet Zurneberg. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the eLearn podcast.
My name's Ladik. It's wonderful to have everyone here on Thursday. It still feels like the beginning of the year to me on January 11th, so I say happy New Year to everyone. Happy New Year, Dr. Ayelet.
How are you today? I'm wonderful. I'm a little nervous. I would say it's the first time I'm participating in a live podcast. Oh,
that's fantastic. I'm so excited. This is your first time. time. But I already know you're going to be fantastic because we've talked several times about what is, I mean, it's both important and fascinating and interesting topic.
But you are, Dr. Ayelet Zur-Nayburg, sorry, Nuremberg. Look at that. I just completely destroyed your name. No, that's okay. Ayelet Zur-Nayburg. There you go.
Ayelet Zur-Nayburg. I apologize for that. My mouth ran over itself. Where are you? you sitting in the world today? I'm located in Colorado, beautiful Colorado.
I'm the Director of Adult Student Success at the Colorado Community College System. And I'll tell you a little bit about our system, because we are not a student -facing institution,
but we do work with 13 community colleges all around the state of Colorado. We serve the state of Colorado. over 110 ,000 students at over 35 locations.
We offer like a thousand different programs and degrees and certificates. And in my role,
I serve all those colleges and all those students that are taking courses at the colleges. Then 10. and I again I'll remind you because we had this discussion a couple of weeks ago Actually,
maybe maybe two months ago when we when we decided to do this podcast But not only am I a coloradoan, but I am also Somebody who used the Colorado Community College system as well,
you know in my in my degree So that's I feel like I'm a part of this conversation in a really big way, which is fantastic I We want to talk about adult learners and why adult learners are important,
how you're serving adult learners, especially in the Colorado system there and some unique ways. Let me start by asking a question, which is just basically why is this important?
I mean, why are adult learners important, especially you made it very clear, people who are over the age of 25, right, because technically everyone who's 18 is an adult. But we're talking... nontraditional sort of where I want to come back to school.
I want to level up or upskill or reskill or something like that. Why are these people so important? And specifically for community colleges, we have a mission to serve our community,
which includes the adult learners. And we also have a part of our role is to make sure that we have the needed talent for workforce demand.
And in many cases, these are those adults that even if they do have a credential, but I will soon talk about that and show you that there are many,
many adults in Colorado with no credential at all, not even an industry credential. But even if they do have a credential, our economy changes changes and new skills are needed,
new jobs exist. So people need to, they're even out from the workforce and higher education needs to be seamless, needs to happen through the life of an adult.
I know that I changed at least three different careers in my lifetime, and it's very common for people to want to try new jobs. things or to just advance within their fields.
And so it's part of our mission statement to serve this population. 100%. More than that. Sorry. Sorry. More than that. Yeah. More than that, I will tell you that Tim,
I think it is a mistake to focus only on high schoolers and recent high school grads because this population is shrinking.
And so for higher education institutions to secure a stream of revenue, they need to look beyond this younger population of students.
- Impact that just a little bit more for me. Is it shrinking because fewer students are graduating from high schools? There's just fewer students in general, like there's less babies, you know, and so therefore-- - Wow, yeah. the point there?
There are, so the birth rate is declining for most populations in the US, for most demographic groups in the US, and we know how many students are enrolled in kindergarten,
first grade, so we can predict how many high school graduates we will have in the future and this this number is decreasing. - And there's an awful lot of noise right now around will those students even choose college as a next level?
I know that's not necessarily our conversation, but I'm sure that that's a piece of the equation as well. - Definitely, yes. - So, adult learners are important, 100%.
I mean, I'd love that you said you've... changed careers three times, I probably changed careers 20 times. And I was actually thinking, as you were saying, that when I was in the community college experience,
this is pre -Facebook, right? So let's just think about the number of different things that have come onto the stage in terms of career possibilities or job possibilities, and just even how we work and why,
you know, those kinds of things. So So I want to get us to a place where how the community college system maybe helps people pivot and grow and those kinds of things.
But what are the challenges that an adult learner usually faces when, you know, thinking about recredentialing or upscaling or rescaling or those kinds of things? So this is a great question.
And I will tell you, I joined the system office a little over two years ago. ago to a newly created position. So I'm the first to hold this position of director of adult student success as part of a grant from the Lumina Foundation.
And the first thing that I've done when I joined the system was to survey adult learners. So I was able to reach out to adults.
who took classes or enrolled in one of the 13 colleges that we have over the last three years. The survey that I sent included adults who graduated,
completed their degrees, adults who transferred to, let's say, a four -year institution, but also adults that took classes and never completed the survey.
and degree or adults that sign up to a college and never attended any classes. So after serving them, so I had over 1100 responses which was amazing.
It gave me a lot of information but after the survey I held focus groups with students so I reached out to people who participated in the survey and I invited them to attend forums with me in order to try and identify what works,
what doesn't work, what are the barriers. And one of the major barriers that adult learners face is the fact that we are not scheduling classes around their availability.
A lot of adult learners face different commitments. They have full -time job, they have kids at home, or other family members that they need to take care of.
And our schedule is not adult learner friendly. Most classes-- - Most people can't show up at like 1 .30 in the afternoon or whatever. - Exactly.
And speaking of online learning, which is, I know your focus, this is why online is important. essential for adult learners. It's not necessarily their preferred format for taking classes,
but they have no other choice. If they want to graduate and complete a degree or a certificate, it's very rarely that they could do that without taking online classes.
Hi there. I'm sorry to break into the show right now, but if you're enjoying this show, if you're you are challenged, if you're inspired, if you're learning something, if you think that you're going to be able to get something out of this to put into your practice,
do me a quick favor. Pause right now and just hit subscribe on your podcast player right now. It doesn't matter which one, just hit subscribe because that way it'll make sure that you never miss an episode in the future. Thanks.
Now, back to the show. So how are you helping to change that? What's your input now that you've done this survey? Did you, you've pulled it apart and you've, you know...
- Yeah. - You only gave us one thing, by the way. What are we like some of the other insights? - There are actually 11. I found 11 barriers. Some are within our control and some are not.
Some relate to federal regulations around financial aid, for example. I can't change that. But, the fact that, I'll share with you, you another barrier that I found it relates to prior learning assessment,
we do not value the work experience, the life experience, the skills that our adult learners acquired outside of higher ed.
Now those skills are valued by the private market, it's very common to see see adults who come to a community college take a few classes,
never graduate with a degree or certificate, but are able to find better jobs, higher pay. And this is due to the fact that the private market knows how to assess all the other skills that they're bringing wisdom to the table and we don't.
So one of the areas that we prioritize is finding ways to recognize the experience that adult learners bring wisdom.
And this experience can be translated to industry credential or to military experience, or it can be just other life skills that you accumulated from the time you were 18 until you were 19.
25 or older, sometimes 35, sometimes 40, that you're coming to our colleges. - I'm admittedly surprised that you've just said,
a business, they're willing to say, hey, look, you're in the system and you've applied and I can see you're taking a couple of college classes, but we also see that you've got 20 years of experience.
here, 10 years of experience. And they put that equation, how come the university system doesn't see that? What's the, is that just a historical artifact of how the system works or what's the deal there?
Oh, so there is a lot of factors. Let's start with that, that the adult learners, they do not speak the language of higher education. So if I tell them PLA,
which is an acronym that stands for Prior Learning Assessment, or if I say CPL, Credit for Prior Learning, they don't know what it is. They don't know that it exists. They don't know that they can apply for credit based on their experience.
Now, I want to tell you some stories because in my forms, I had three different adult learners, each one from a different industry. that had over 20 years of work experience.
And they all came to our college because they needed the associate degree in order to advance in their fields. So I had one student who came from IT,
one student in healthcare, and the third student was construction management. Now they had 20 years of experience. We did not,
we, and I'm talking about three different colleges out of the 13 in the system, did not recognize their experience, did not even give them one college credit for their experience.
Now I asked them. So when I asked the person from IT, again, the person graduated high school, went to work in IT, had 20 years of experience,
and when the one to advance to a managerial position, they were told, "You must have an associate degree." So he went back to this person, went back to school, and he needed to take introduction to Microsoft Word.
- I was just gonna say, yeah, exactly, like, yeah, intro tech courses. - But you knew that, why didn't he request for credit? Did he said, "I didn't know I could"? could. I didn't know I could.
Now, the other student, the construction management student, his story actually reflects, I think, it amazed me, because he went to an introduction to construction class.
And on the first day, he knew that he knows the content of the class. So he went to the testing center, the college testing center, and said, "Hey,
do you have a test that exempt me from the content of the class?" Now, the testing center, this is not what they do because a different office at the college evaluates students for their experience.
So the testing center said, "We don't know what you're talking about." >> Oh my Lord. Yeah. >> We don't have anything like that because again, it's not their job. I don't know if they know that another place at the college does assessment for learning So the student did not give up.
He went back to the instructor and he said hey, I've been working in this industry for 20 years I know how to measure a door Instructor told him we all need to start from the same place shut up.
No way way. - Again, I don't know if it's ignorant on the part of the instructor, or I will tell you that there are some faculty who believe, strongly believe that if you didn't take this content with them,
you can't demonstrate that you know the competencies of this course. - Wow. - So, and the third student, the healthcare student was really,
full time in health care, eight to five. She had both the challenges that I mentioned. A, she couldn't find evening courses to satisfy her requirements.
And when she did find, she found two classes that she needed that were offered in the evenings. Both classes were offered on the same day at the same time. Of course. Again,
because our different departments, they don't talk to each other. other, they don't present to a student a schedule start to finish. Here is classes you need to take, here is when they need to be offered.
And what she told me, she said, some of the assignments in this class, this is my work, this is my job, I just want to be exempt from portions of the class to free my time to do other things.
and so these are common challenges that again we're trying to address I will add to that that even students that are informed about the possibility to apply for credit for prior learning colleges most colleges 12 out of the 13 colleges in our system they charge a fee for this application and it's a working fee it's a fee per credit.
So if you're taking a three credit class and you need to pay $45 per credit to apply for credit for power learning, A,
it is not covered by financial aid or by the GI Bill. So it is an out -of -pocket expense that some of the students struggle paying. And B,
you're paying this and you're not sure what you're paying. the outcome would be. You don't know if the faculty that evaluate your portfolio will decide that you did meet the competencies of the class to give you the credits.
These are examples of systemic barriers that I found that we can address. Yeah, I'm just I'm I am almost speechless. If I'm completely honest with you,
I just just these relatively simple stories, where an individual like yourself was able to look at the system system -wide and come back with these stories, just these three simple...
I mean, the amount of... If I were a leader in any of these institutions would create such a red flag for me that I would pull the brake on the engine and I would just say,
"Let's fix this stuff immediately." So what's... Give us some examples. examples of non -systemic problems or challenges. So there are some anecdotal problems that are unique to an institution.
And I will tell you, I have the data. I love data. So I look at all kinds of data. I look at enrollment,
retention, completion rate, rate among our adult students. And there are huge differences between different colleges in our system when it comes to serving adults.
So one of our colleges, for example, over 50 % of their students are adult learners. Whereas I have another institution that less than 15 % of their head count are adult learners.
I have one college in the system that actually created a position that is called the director of prior learning assessment. This is the only college in the system that has this position.
Now, to be fair, I will tell you that this college has a lot of military students just because of their location next to the Air Force Academy. and most of the credit for power learning are given to military students,
which is a little easier because the military does have an outline that makes, exactly, makes recommendations of certain military training how to translate them to college credits.
So the situations in colleges are very different, but again I'm trying to find a methodology that will help colleges serve better adult learners and help our adult learners be able to be successful and help our employers in Colorado,
both existing employers, because we do have mismatch. We have gaps between jobs that are available. and we don't have workers that are skilled for these jobs.
But also if we want to attract a new business, if I want, I don't know, a company to open their new location in Colorado, I need to offer them skilled workforce that can perform the jobs that they need.
- For sure, absolutely. - Absolutely. So again, I'm so wrapped up in just these problems that you put on the table that are just like, I'm having a hard time thinking around them, even just the whole like paying to apply for a credit that I may not get that I then have to pay for the credit that blows,
it blows me away, rather than just having a system that would say, we, you know, hey, let's assess what you have. Let's put together, you know, the credits that we're going to get. you,
and then let's build a program from there and what you can pay for that. Just that one shift seems so simple and so common sense to me. I'm not sure what to even ask next,
so there you go. So let me elaborate a little bit about that, and I will tell you that this grant that pays my paycheck that we received from Lumina was for about about almost a million dollars and it was for two years and what we've done with that money we awarded this money to the colleges to start pilot projects to serve better adult learners of color and one of these programs for our largest community college in
the system focused on credit for prior learning and what they have done with that money, so they received $48 ,000. So again, it's not an enormous amount.
It's within reach because we supported 16 different grants, subgrants to the colleges. So this one, they took the $48 ,000 and what they've done is,
first, they created materials for students explained. what credit for power learning is, how you can apply, and they made those videos both in English and in Spanish,
and posted it on their website, held several events, informational events for students, and then they used the rest of the money to give students vouchers so they can apply for free.
during a specific period of time. So this period ended, but they've done that and the results were amazing. They had eight students that each one of these eight students received 20 credits for prior learning assessment,
which means those eight students when they've taken it, when they're registered to an associate degree, which is 60 credits, a third of their degree is already behind them. And we have nationwide research that shows that when you are recognized for your experience,
this increases your likelihood to retain and complete. And I believe 38 students who graduated during the period of the grant due to the credit for prior learning that they received.
So we had really amazing results with this specific grant, and I will tell you there were other grants that were amazing. I'll tell you about maybe two of them, but what we're doing now,
so now we are doing phase two of Lumina grant, so Lumina was generous enough. to fund us for 18 more months. And during the 18 months,
they gave us a lot less money than the first time. But again, the majority of that money is used to take successful projects from phase one and scale them.
So now we're taking the project that was successful for phase one. And [AUDIO OUT] and we are scaling it to six other colleges. So just,
I think this is how you tackle systemic barriers. You need to have a pilot to show a success cost -benefit analysis. And then if it is successful, now we need to scale it.
- Sure. I guess my question then is if part of the pilot projects were, a grant that essentially provides scholarship for prior learning credit and those kinds of things,
is this something where you're now seeing in the pilot schools and potentially the scale schools where they're saying, look, we're going to change policy or we're going to affect change in a way that is sustainable,
right? Like we need something that actually is sustainable. And this honestly just sounds like you need a review of the business model of the school you need. a review of the coordination of departments and the credentialing system,
etc. So do you see those factors being changed? Because otherwise you're just creating a dependency on grant funds. Yes. So I do. I will tell you that one of the 13 colleges announced,
less than a year ago, maybe eight months ago, that they are cancelling the fees for credit for prior learning. So. So again, one of the 13 already voted to fund the cost of the assessment because there is a cost.
You need to pay a faculty member to review a portfolio of a student. They decided to fund it internally from the general funds. Now, this is again,
it's a pioneer, but I think we're headed to this direction. We are are working with an external consultant that will review the processes at the colleges for credit for prior learning,
including costs, but it's not just costs. And we're hoping that at least half of our system colleges will make thoughtful revisions to their processes at the end of the day.
to their marketing material. And again, you need to remember, each one of the 13 colleges is accredited on its own. We,
the system office, we are not an accredited institution. And part of this accreditation is that the colleges need to develop their own processes. I cannot develop a process and dictate it to the colleges.
This, I have no, and no, nor do I want to, but we can scale the knowledge that we have from one college to another.
We can work together as a cohort while developing our own processes that meet our unique needs. If I'm a rural institution,
my needs may be very different than if I'm an urban institution. So we want to be. very respectful to these differences. - I love that. I'm just, again, my mind is sort of wrapping itself around if my biggest problem is a decrease in entrance.
And what I'm finding is that I have multiple barriers for those, you know, for more people to come in, right? It would, by removing those barriers, it seems like I'm reducing my revenue.
It seems like I'm reducing, you know, you're correct. But at the same time, the volume of more new individuals that would be coming in would more than surpass what those fees would be.
So I'm just, I'm noodling on that particular thing. So in the next five minutes or the last five minutes we have here, tell me about what you've you've alluded to some of the recommendations that you've given,
but like what can higher institutions do more generally if there's more points about recruiting adult learners, breaking down these barriers? Like what's been your recommendations going forward about,
hey, here's how we do it better? - So let's start with recruiting. I feel that colleges are trying to catch the low -hanging fruit.
which are the high school students. So it is so easy to go to visit a high school and have a presentation about your college and you have kind of a large audience that's part of their school days to listen to you.
- Right. - And it's a lot more difficult to find the adults. They're not located. in one place. You can't just, so I, part of what I do in my job,
I read a lot of literature and experiences from other states. And I found that they are recommended for different avenues to reach adult learners.
So one is social media. media and social media. And you know, we have all those algorithms that allow you to be very thoughtful in your campaigns.
You can reach, you can target certain ages of potential students. And we have, so social media is a big word to many,
many platforms, but this is one way to reach adult learners. The second way to reach adult learners investing in advertisement, so online ads, radio ads,
newspapers, television. The third one is doing a college outreach, so college outreach, college website, college events that are planned.
I've been saying for a time, if we do have those high schoolers, let's bring their parents, let in interest their parents in taking classes with us. And then the fourth category is community outreach.
So community outreach, go to employers, go to job fairs, churches, anything. So, you know,
even then, a few years ago, I moved to a different city and I received the city made me a welcome package. And in this welcome package,
they had information about the local community college that was located in my city. - Wow. - This is an example, it's so simple, but it's an example of letting your community know that you exist,
letting them know about different programs that you offer financial aid opportunities. that students will have or other scholarships opportunities, and so on.
- I hope this isn't a curve ball too much of a, of a, because there's no agenda behind this question. And I was like, how much thought is being put into just sort of the rebrand or just like the feeling of what both community college and just college in general?
is to an adult learner. Like, I mean, a person of myself, you know, many decades out of the traditional, you know, college age, as we would think about it, the thought of like, ah, going back to college or,
you know, or even just, you know, going back to an institution of a sort is that I know that that's a mental barrier. So a way to sort of say, hey, this is, you can do this in, you know, during your work time or like,
do you see where I'm going with that? Like, kind of reburnt. -branding the feeling of what this is? Like, what do you think about that? So let me put it in buckets. There are three things that you care about as a potential adult learners.
One is the schedule. You need someone to tell you by coming to school two evenings a week, Monday is Wednesdays from 6 p .m. to 9 p .m.
For three years, you will finish this degree or by Or by taking time off your work and coming for two weeks, start to finish,
you can get this certificate. - Wow. - So we need to be very creative, but we definitely need to be transparent about the schedule, which we are not at the moment.
The second thing you want to know is your cost. How much would it cost me? The cost, not just tuition, because there's, so-- - There's meeting, there's time off,
like there's, there's, you know, yes. There's a whole bunch of it in that space. - Exactly, we need to be transparent about the cost. And the third thing is return on investment.
I need to tell you, I need to be able to tell you, starting salary in this field, starting salary for people who hold this certificate is this much, the possibility-- of growth over five years is this much.
And we know that data. And I will tell you not every certificate is valued the same. There are some industries that by taking a few courses,
you can increase your pay by $10 ,000 per year just by taking those few classes. I have the data It is based on research.
So we have we have data that we were was tracked based on social security numbers of students. So we were able to say this student took these classes and increased their earning by this much.
Wow. So so I think that these are the three factors that we must think for. So we talked about recruitment. recruitment a little bit and I will tell you,
recruitment brings them to the door. It doesn't keep students. If we are not able to offer them programs that match their schedule, that are affordable,
that would lead to an economic gain because people are smart. They do the cost benefit analysis and never, I think more than ever higher education is being checked.
challenged with the question. Is it worth it? Is it worth my time? Is it worth my money? how important Is the feeling of knowing I have peers also Doing this with me in you know as a as an as a non -traditional adult learner,
right? Because part of the college experience in a traditional sense is hey I've got a class and here's my roommate and here's the people that you know that kind of stuff, my cohort, so to speak. For an adult learner,
it sounds very individual. Is there another way to encourage recruitment and application and retainments through that kind of support? - Yes,
so this is actually a great question. And you touched on a point that surprised me during the forums that I held with the adult learners. And this point is...
is really they want to be with other people like them. And sometimes they feel uncomfortable being with younger students.
And I'll give you two examples. One is that someone told me and adult learners told me that I was too embarrassed to ask questions in the class because when I asked them,
the questions, all those 18 year old younger students looked at me and says, like, look at me in a look that told me they're thinking, you're all, you should know that.
And I never, it was not a barrier that I could predict. But then we talked about math. And math is a big barrier to all students,
but especially to a... to adult learners because they have huge gap since high school, at least seven years gap, sometimes 20 years gap. And if you think, be honest with yourself,
we don't remember. You know, math, if you don't practice it, you forget it. My adult learners in the forums told me, I don't want to be tutored alongside with an 18 year old.
I don't feel comfortable. So one of our recommendation was, let's try and have a tutoring group for adults or alternatively,
and some would say even better, let's provide resources to adult learners so they can have a self -paced online refreshers on certain topics.
So we-- if they forgot one thing how to do, they can look at a targeted video, seven minute video,
only about this, what they need. So it will allow them to, from the comfort of their own homes to kind of catch up with gaps. I think that if we do work together and they're across different parts of the country.
college, we can create programs that naturally will attract adult learners and then the adults can benefit from having a cohort of peers.
- I love it. Dr. Ayelet, Zur Neighbor, I just wanna make sure that I said all three of your names correctly there before we get into this. How do people reach out to you? How can they contact you about your research?
research about what you're learning about the changes that are happening and what can go What can happen in the future? So best way I think is an email and please feel free to provide my email or put it on the screen but also social Networking LinkedIn just find me and I would love to connect Excellent fantastic Wonderful,
I really appreciate you. This is you know I'm starting my day right now inspired to help find change in the community college system in Colorado and other places. Your research and the data that you've put on here has been,
I love it when you can start the day and just be like, wow, like there are real problems to solve and real ways to solve it, right? Like it sounds like there's really, you know, low -hanging fruit,
as you say, to take step forward. But thank you so much. for taking time out of your day to speak with us. I really appreciate it. Thank you for this wonderful opportunity. Thank you again for listening to the eLearn podcast here from Open LMS.
I just wanted to ask one more time, if you enjoyed this show, if you learned something, if you were inspired, if you were challenged, if you feel like, you know, this is something you can take into your practice, please do me a favor.
And right now, on your podcast player, hit subscribe. That way, you're never going to miss it. a future episode. Also come over to elearnmagazine .com and subscribe there as well because we have tons of great information about how to create killer online learning outcomes.
Thanks.