Yes, I believe that it is our responsibility as facilitators to motivate these adult learners. Given that it’s a one day workshop and that you are a freelancer hired for the job of delivering that workshop to a local corporation and their employees lots are at stake. I think most of the time when training/ workshop happens to take place in an organization, many are either excited, many already know the knowledge and are bored of listening or lots of people don’t want change, and last but not least it could also be that they are really not benefiting much out of the workshop. It is often up to the teacher to deliver the workshop with enthusiasm and energy AND FIND a way to better understand the “problems” or “situations” that the trainee is involved in. It’s important for them to get to know their students, increase communication, and ensure a positive learning environment. Most importantly, trainers/ teachers should try their best to ensure that what they are teaching makes sense to the people present, presented in a easy to follow method and that it’s applicable to what is required on the job (Knowles- motivation to learn). I do want to add that teacher’s/ trainers are responsible for the environment their learners are in (including the way the tables are set up, the way the lights are, ease of access to resources, learning the information and the way they capture the interest of the group).

Group 8- Connie

I do not feel that it is the responsibility of the instructor to motivate the participants. They are required to attend the course by their workplace and as such need to make an effort to engage in the course. The instructor has been hired specifically to teach the course on health and safety, so is probably used to teaching this type of group. If you are being paid to attend the course, then it should be considered part of your employment and your motivation is your responsibility. One may not enjoy the course, however it does not mean that you will learn nothing from it.

No, in this case, I do not believe it is the instructor's job to motivate the participants. If they can not motivate themselves when it comes to their own health and safety, then they are a group that is not willing to help themselves, clearly. Sometimes no matter how hard you try, people with their own internal reasons have already made the conscious effort to not get involved no matter what. No matter the song and dance you put on will still not motivate them. You can't take it personal, you just have to go on doing the best you can knowing not everyone WANTS to be involved.

I believe that the facilitator has, if not all, a big part of responsibility to motivate students. In this case, being a one-day, workshop, the facilitator doesn’t have time to analyze why some students are not engaged and apply corrective measures along the days, he has to act on the fly. He may have experience on dealing with un-engaged students; if he has been doing this for some time, he is familiar with situations like students that consider the course irrelevant for their daily tasks, or that they are spending time in the class when they have a lot of work to do, or it’s a boring subject. So, being aware of these situations, the facilitator should have already arguments and techniques to engage the students, for example, highlight the importance of having the knowledge in case a real risk or emergency situation arises, give examples on how a person having the knowledge can help and someone that doesn’t, can’t, the importance of being certified (if this applies to the workshop), use humour in delivering the class if it’s possible, etc. - Mirtha

Yes, I believe it is the facilitator’s responsibility to motivate the students attending the workshop.

Although it’s only a one-day workshop, but healthy and safety are the important topics everyone concerns. People have already heard and learned a lot about this, so it requires the facilitator to prepare an interesting, fun and outstanding way to attract the audience.

Hong

No, it is not the responsibility of the instructor to motivate adult learners. Learners are going to innately get what they want to get from the information that is presented to them. Especially for adult learners, in my experience with all efforts to motivate and engage all learners, typically those who are not interested may become engaged, but it is often short-lived until they are personally interested in learning.

- Chantelle

I agree with your statement, but also understand the tough roles some individuals are placed into when it comes to corporations or private companies.

I believe that facilitators must stimulate learner’s interest in learning. All posts have outlined many contributing factors in regards to having participation from all learners. We as facilitators are responsible for creating content that captures the learner’s interest in order to maximize the retention of information that is presented. As per Bloom’s Taxonomy the first step cannot be satisfied without the learner understanding and retaining the knowledge that was presented.

Although I don't fully disagree with this statement entirely, I do disagree with it as it pertains to this scenario.

When delivering a course of such short length, trying to motivate those that obviously don't want to be there would most likely take away from the overall experience of the rest of the participants. From my experience, even a very negative student can be motivated but it usually takes time. Such an important topic should be the focus for an engaged trainer, not some employee with a poor attitude.

I believe it is the facilitator responsibility to motivate the adult learners who are indifferent and does not want to be there, to ensure that the adult learners comprehend the information on health and safety. This can be done by emphasizing the practicality of health and safety, by relating the information to the adult learner’s life or use humor in the delivery to capture the attention of the demotivated learners. Once the learners have been motivated, the facilitator will have the attention of the entire group and will be able to successfully deliver the workshop with full engagement/ participation for the entire group.

No I don't believe it is the responsibility of the instructor to motivate adult learners. I think most individuals who enroll in a course or workshop, do so because they have something to gain such as a new skill, a promotion or a new job. Zemke and Zemke state that "Adults who are motivated to seek out a learning experience do so primarily because they have a use for the knowledge or skill being sought."

Eldon, While I agree with you that the adult learner needs to be self-motivated to learn, as instructor's we need to understand the barriers that are preventing them from being motivated and when possible, remove those barriers. Understanding these barriers and removing them can lead to better learning outcomes.

Motivation can definitely vary within a learning environment. I see the instructor's role, not so much to take on the responsibility of motivation, but to encourage learners to decide how they learn best. (Kola, 1984) Prior to the workshop, I would send the participants a survey to help facilitate some reflection. Why are they participating in this workshop? What do they hope to get out of it? Hopefully I would be made aware of the different motivations within the class and could tailor my lesson to incorporate the relevant material that the learners are seeking. Knowles indicates that adult learners are relevancy orientated. (Knowles, 1970)

I agree with what you say that adults have to come into a classroom wanting to learn. A prefect example of this is our own class. We all come from different fields or careers, different educational backgrounds, different areas of the world but we are all here for a reason. To get our Adult training certificate so that we can advance in our own area.

Inese

Yes, I believe it is the responsibility of the facilitator to motivate the adult learners who don’t want to be there. Having them engaged makes their experience with the workshop more positive. As we learned with Zemke and Zemke, adults have expectations and the learning environment itself has to be both physically and psychologically comfortable. It is highly likely that the learners who don’t want to be there are the people who don’t see the value of the workshop or they don’t want to learn something new. As Zemke also pointed out, with self-esteem and egos in the room, the disengaged learners don’t want to look like a “fool” learning new behaviours in front of others. In those instances, it is the responsibility of the facilitator to motivate them and get them comfortable with where they are and what they are about to do.

Felix L

Yes, I believe that the instructor is required to motivate an adult learner because as adults will still sometimes have to take course or seminars that we may not want to but have to. If the instructor can't motivate the learner than the learner may walk away from it gaining nothing. This can be done through examples of how it can affect them in real life (Knowles).

Inese

No, I don't think the instructor is necessarily responsible for an adult learner's motivation. One of Knowles' five assumptions of adult learners is that one's self-concept moves from dependency to self-direction. In his book, Andragogy In Action (1984), Knowles acknowledged that adults are influenced to some extent by external motivators such as a pay raise or job promotion, but believed that internal motivators such as self-actualization are more influential (Blondy, 2007).

Therefore, facilitators can help foster a learner's self-direction, for example by defining concrete learning outcomes - but the initial motivation to learn should come from within.

Eldon