Resources › For Educators Using Ice Breakers With Your Adult Students Print Steve Debenport / Getty Images For Educators Teaching Teaching Adult Learners An Introduction to Teaching Tips & Strategies Policies & Discipline Community Involvement School Administration Technology in the Classroom Issues In Education Teaching Resources Becoming A Teacher Assessments & Tests Elementary Education Secondary Education Special Education Homeschooling By Deb Peterson Deb Peterson Education Expert B.A., English, St. Olaf College Deb Peterson is a writer and a learning and development consultant who has created corporate training programs for firms of all sizes. Learn about our Editorial Process Updated on August 04, 2018 People tend to laugh when you mention using an ice breaker in the classroom, but there are five good reasons you should use them if you teach adults. Ice breakers can make you a better teacher because they help your adult students get to know each other better, and when adults are more comfortable in their surroundings, it's easier for them to learn. So in addition to using ice breakers for introductions, which you probably already do, here are five more ways ice breakers will make you a better teacher. 01 of 05 Get Students Thinking About the Next Topic Cultura / yellowdog / Getty Images No matter where you're teaching adults—at school, in the workplace, at the community center—they come to the classroom with minds full of the myriad things we all balance every day. Any pause in learning allows those daily responsibilities to creep in. When you start each new lesson with a short warm up that relates to the topic, you're allowing your adult students to switch gears, once again, and focus on the topic at hand. You're engaging them. Read More Fun Classroom Introductions for the First Day of School By Deb Peterson 02 of 05 Wake Them Up! JFB / Getty Images We've all seen students who look bored out of their minds, whose eyes have glazed over. Their heads are propped up on their hands or buried in their phones. You need an energizer to wake people up. Party games are good for this purpose. You'll get groans, but in the end, your students will be laughing, and then they'll be ready to get back to work. The idea behind these games is to take a quick break that's very easy. We're going for light fun and laughs here. Laughter pumps oxygen through your body and wakes you up. Encourage your students to be silly if they want to. 03 of 05 Generate Energy Klaus Vedfelt / Getty Images When something is kinetic, its energy comes from movement. Some of the energizers in No. 2 are kinetic, but not all. Kinetic energy is good because it not only wakes up your students' bodies, it wakes up their minds. 04 of 05 Make Test Prep More Fun and Effective Hero Images / Getty Images Show your students how fun you are by creating Games for Test Prep. Research shows that students who vary the way they study and the places they study remember more, partly because of association. That's our aim here. Have fun before test time, and see if grades go up. 05 of 05 Inspire Meaningful Conversation track5 / Getty Images When you're teaching adults, you've got people in your classroom with loads of personal experience. Since they're in the classroom because they want to be, you can expect that they're open to meaningful conversation. Conversation is one of the ways in which adults learn—through the sharing of ideas. Cite this Article Format mla apa chicago Your Citation Peterson, Deb. "Using Ice Breakers With Your Adult Students." ThoughtCo, Apr. 5, 2023, thoughtco.com/ice-breakers-make-you-better-teacher-31245. Peterson, Deb. (2023, April 5). Using Ice Breakers With Your Adult Students. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/ice-breakers-make-you-better-teacher-31245 Peterson, Deb. "Using Ice Breakers With Your Adult Students." ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/ice-breakers-make-you-better-teacher-31245 (accessed March 28, 2024). copy citation