Characteristics of Adult Learners

I have found a very interesting resource to help identify distinct characteristics of an adult learner. In this web article, (Billington, D, Seven Characteristics of Highly Effective Adult Learning Programs).  Dorothy describes 7 key factors.

1) "An environment where students feel safe and supported, where individual needs and uniqueness are honored, where abilities and life achievements are acknowledged and respected"

2) "An environment that fosters intellectual freedom and encourages experimentation and creativity"

3) "An environment where faculty treats adult students as peers -- accepted and respected as intelligent experienced adults whose opinions are listened to, honoured, appreciated. Such faculty member often comment that they learn as much from their students as the students learn from them.

4) "Self-directed learning, where students take responsibility for their own learning"

5) Pacing or intellectual challenge"

6) Active involvement in learning, as opposed to passively listening to lectures"

7) Regular feedback mechanisms for students to tell faculty what works best for them and what they want and need to learn"

These points make sense to me and I would like to find many similarities with them in the classroom already.

I believe that these 7 factors can help to provide me with check-in points during my classroom time. By this I mean that I can ask myself; "Is this lecture paced correctly, and is it providing the intelectual challenge appropriate for these apprentices"? Or, "Do I need to lecture this point, or can we use the lab to reinforce this through active learning"?