Vic TeachEmergent Adulthood: developmental stage and teaching considerations

Rachel Riedel

Wellbeing Educator and Advisor

Student Counselling

Emergent Adulthood

• Theory of development between the ages of 18-25.

• Neither adolescence or adulthood – distinctly unique life period.

• “Emerging adulthood is distinguished by relative independence from social roles and from normative expectations. Having left the dependency of childhood and adolescence, and having not yet entered the enduring responsibilities that are normative in adulthood, emerging adults often explore a variety of possible life directions in love, work, and worldviews. Emerging adulthood is a time of life when many different directions remain possible, when little about the future has been decided for certain, when the scope of independent exploration of life's possibilities is greater for most people than it will be at any other period of the life course” (Arnett, 2000, p.469).

Emergent Adulthood

• Cultural influences > delayed onset of taking on true ‘adult’ responsibilities > extended experimentation period in life.

• Key years in identity formation where they experiment with various possibilities and move towards a more solid understanding of their identity.

• Generally experiment with 3 main areas: love, work, and world views.

• Interaction with people – including peers – helps students develop this sense of self and identity.

Emergent Adulthood

• Experimentation is part of their developmental stage – increased likelihood of risk taking behaviour.

• Period of immense diversity and change in terms of where they are living, who they are living with, relationships, and roles and responsibilities. Unifying characteristic of 18-25 – instability of housing.

• Learning life skills along academic literacies and content. These skills include resiliency, communication, team work, grit, organisation, time management, and help seeking. • As well as general living skills that prepare them for adulthood – budgeting,

paying bills on time, cooking, living with others.

Teaching Considerations for Emergent Adulthood

• Developing a sense of who they are. Part of that includes who they are in a work/study context. As a result, 18-25 year olds can highly personalise feedback.

• Feedback is crucial in the learning process, so what can we do?

• Provide opportunities for informal and formal assessment with alternative pathways for feedback (beyond written).

• Include dialogue on what feedback is intended for.

• A suggestion from a fellow academic: share journal article rejection feedback, with the message of ‘I’m still standing’.

• Provide general feedback on the assignment in lectures/tutorials if possible. It is preferable that this is done once the students have their grades.

• Help students manage their expectations about marks, performance and success.

Teaching Considerations for Emergent Adulthood

• Developing a sense of who they are – this includes their beliefs about their ability to succeed at university.

• Teacher expectations and the student self efficacy are crucial factors in the level of student achievement.

• Consider:

• What are your expectations?

• How do you communicate them?

• Are they consistent across your programmes?

• How can you help students feel that they have the ability to achieve?

• Tips: celebrate small successes, provide a range of assessment types, create a sense of belonging, recognise improvement (however small, and not just in written tasks. It could be how communicated their thoughts in their tutorial)

Teaching Considerations for Emergent Adulthood

• 18-25 year olds are learning a lot of academic and life skills, very quickly. At times, this can make them feel overwhelmed. It is essential that they learn these skills, so what can we do?• Help students recognise when they are feeling overwhelmed, and support help

seeking. Awareness can simply come from asking a question – ‘I know this is quite a busy, pressured time, how are you going?’

• Embed (where possible) the development of these skills in programmes. This is particularly important when considering the transition from high school to university.

• Collaborate with the student support services who specialise in these areas.

The Importance Of A Needs-Meeting Learning Environment

• A needs-meeting teacher is hard to ignore, as you are acting in a way that fulfils basic human needs, therefore you are more likely to be ‘heard’ when teaching.

• Needs-meeting learning environments promote engagement and retention as students feel connected, that they have something to contribute, and feel safe to question, criticise and vocalise.

Needs-Meeting Learning Environments

• Positive Youth Development Theory

• Four main elements to a needs meeting classroom once basic human needs are met:• Independence

• Generosity

• Belonging

• Mastery

• For more information on this theory: http://www.academia.edu/7847130/The_Circle_of_Courage_Developing_Resilience_and_Capacity_in_Youth

Needs-Meeting Learning Environments

Quick wins on creating a needs-meeting learning environment:

• Belonging: arrive 5 minutes before lectures and mingle with students/stay 5 minutes after, thank them for contributions, use their names, group work/team-based learning, peer assessment.

• Generosity: strengths-based approaches – what/how can they contribute to the learning in the classroom? Group work, peer assessment, in discussions. Emphasise the idea of a learning community – for that to work we need to get used to sharing our thoughts/ideas. Linking to the ‘real world’ of work often helps.

Needs-Meeting Learning Environments

• Mastery: expand definition of success beyond marks, celebrate mastery of academic literacies and life skills (e.g. ask them to search for an article, and as a group, ask them to present their thoughts), recognise improvement.

• Independence: support interdependent and independent learning. Provide opportunities for students to have individual roles within group tasks. Two good teaching strategies to enable this: project-based learning and cooperative learning.

Final Note on Pedagogies

• Many approaches to teaching and learning.

• A ‘newish’ pedagogy is Pedagogies for the 21st Century.

• For more information: http://www.p21.org/about-us/p21-framework