How to teach adults in a hands-on workshop

Adults in a workshop have usually chosen to be there, or at least know why they were sent. Greg Wilson puts it this way: motivating them is less of a concern than not demotivating them. He names three things that do it:

• Unpredictability: when what they do doesn't reliably lead to a result, such as a setup that works on one laptop and not the next, or an exercise whose expected output you never showed.
• Indifference: a teacher who doesn't seem to care whether they learn it.
• Unfairness: some learners treated better than others, such as the confident few getting all the attention.

Each one has a practical fix. Test the setup on a clean machine before the day. Show the expected result of every exercise. Help in order, not by who calls loudest.

Adults judge a session by whether it pays for their time. Wilson's advice is to teach first what is quick to master and immediately useful, even if experts don't consider it fundamental, because a few early wins build learners' confidence in themselves and in you.

In practice: the first exercise should end in something they recognise from their own work. A spreadsheet formula that answers a question their team asks every week beats a tour of the menus. If people can bring their own file or problem, plan ten minutes for it.

Adult groups are mixed. Some people have done this for years; some opened the tool for the first time this morning. They also misjudge themselves. Wilson points out that the less someone knows about a subject, the less accurately they can estimate their knowledge, and that people from underrepresented groups often underrate their skills, so a self-rating at registration won't sort the room for you.

The research gives a clear rule for what to give each group. Beginners learn more from worked examples than from working a problem out alone. But Slava Kalyuga and colleagues found that techniques that help novices lose their effect, or even get in the way, with experienced learners: in their studies, as people gained experience, the advantage of worked examples disappeared.

So build both into the same step: a worked example for those who need it, then a problem that asks them to change or extend it. The experienced ones go straight to the problem; the beginners follow the example first.

An adult who is stuck in front of colleagues often stays quiet rather than look slow. Make asking cheap:

• Give a private way to ask for help. Wilson notes that adults are more likely to put up a sticky note than to raise a hand.
• Make your own mistakes in front of them, and fix them out loud. It shows that errors are part of the work.
• Don't take over the keyboard. Guide them through the fix and let them type it, so they can do it again without you.

The Carpentries single out the word "just", as in "you just click here", because it tells learners that the helper thinks their problem is trivial, and that there must be something wrong with them if it isn't. "Simply", "obviously" and "everyone knows" do the same.

The same goes for "Any questions?" followed by a two-second pause. Asked that way, it says you don't expect any. The Carpentries suggest "What questions do you have?" and then waiting long enough for someone to form one.

Most advice on teaching adults repeats Malcolm Knowles' principles of andragogy: adults are self-directed, bring experience, and need to know why they are learning something. These are useful reminders, not proven methods. John Rachal's review of the experimental studies found that of 16 that measured achievement, 10 showed no difference between andragogical and conventional teaching, and two favoured the conventional groups. Treat andragogy as good manners for teaching adults, and the research on worked examples above as the part with evidence behind it.

Students join with a code and a name, without making an account. Each student sees only their own progress, so nobody's pace is on display to the room.

When someone is stuck, Need help sends you a request with a note if they add one, and it reaches only you. For a question they would rather not ask in front of anyone, the chat has a Teacher view: a private conversation that only the two of you see. With Look ahead on, the experienced ones can move to the next step without waiting for the room. After the class, students can keep a page with the lesson to reread later.