find out their experiences and build on that.
Yes employing other students to help does assist you and having them become motivated to further themselves.
The ways you can learn about your students is to get to know them and figure out how/what best fits their needs. My students are all diverse learners, so I have to tailor how I get my points across. The majority of my student come from under-privileged areas.
The registrar may have demographics or backgrounds for incoming students. You can also conduct a pretest or assessment on day one of class. Talking to each student is the best way to determine if there is a diverse learner need though.
CoCintheane,
these are great activities to get to know our students & then be able to help them as much as possible.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
I love assessment inventories. I use many of them and maintain a list of 21 of them. I have my students do 9-10 of them and then write up their understand of their results. They also create VISION DREAM BOARDS AND do LIFELINE time line projects. They also have to write Goals' and Passions' papers. This teaches me about them and their culture. I find out about their personalities and learning styles. I find out about their needs as they also experience self discovery.
To learn about the needs of diverse learners it is very important to have good communications skills.Some students,depending on their culture will never talk about their needs to the Instructor.By interacting with each student it will be easier to understand the problems that the learner is facing.
I also have run across this situation and have used the diversity to create a great atmosphere and learning experience.
The key to learning anything about students and their learning needs is to communicate openly and honestly with students. You could ask them to share in class or schedule individual meetings to learn how you can help them learn best!
Ethel,
this is a great idea & an easy way to get to this information.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
I like to ask the class by way of a survey what type of learner they are.For example a question on the survey will say:
I learn better by A. reading? B. audio? C. verbal lecture?.... This allow them to give feedback specific to their learning needs.
Sharon,
it is a bonus when the learners come with an idea of how they prefer to learn & also understanding that, it can make our lives a lot easier.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
This is a really useful discussion tool. Adult learners in my classes generally have a clear opinion on how they like to learn. When learning new software for the first time, I also ask my students to rank themselves on whether they consider their software skill to be Advanced, Intermediate or Beginner. This also helps me identify the students who need to build confidence and need a recap of concepts, which may have been presented in a prior lesson or class.
Ann,
yes, while acknowledging the experience we also need to help the adult learners remember that they are in the class to learn new information.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
So true. The adult learners, not all, tend to express the need that they have had college courses before and know more than the younger students. At times, the proud are not the smartest.
Change your teaching style so everyone can understand in the class by using examples, exercises, movies etc.
Sometimes their needs are simple in that they want to belong or be in an enviorenment that allows them to pursue the knowledge. Exclusion and trying to create a secular method only alienates them. They are at their best when at ease with the classroom
I love linking students on far ends of the spectrum and those who are equal (as it pertains to knowledge of content). The ability of some students to flourish is always amazing to me. I see over and over again. Love it :)
Ice breakers are a great way to learn about the needs of diverse learners. Beginning with a simple introduction of the student, their degree program, and where they originate helps but you can also introduce ice breaker games where students have to find students in the class with certain qualities. While they complete this "treasure hunt", they learn a lot about each other and you are able to see how they interact with one another.
Brandon,
yes, this is a great exercise & one I like to do as well. Obviously with larger classes this is more of a challenge, but I can accomplish this by having them fill out a personal bio, either on paper or through the LMS portal for my class.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
