Sandra ,
good question. There are many ideas & resources out there, some via the web & others you may want to discuss with some of your peers & see what has worked for them. One of the keys is to provide plenty of time & patience on your part as you work with these students.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
Dr. Meers: What are some good techniques for working with students with a learning disability, such as being a slow learner? I am working with post secondary students in a vocational field, requiring new vocabulary terms and laboratory hands on experience.
Robert ,
I really like the idea of asking them what they expect or want to learn as then they can mark their own progress & see the value that the course has for them.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
On the first day of class ask the students what they expect to learn and what they want to learn.
Give students a pretest on important topics that appear in your syllabus.
Ask students for a writing sample.
Ask students what books they have read in the past two years.
Sarah ,
this is a great approach as it gives you that real time feedback so you can adjust & help as needed.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
John,
I am a firm believer in the power of questions & prompting thinking & analysis through the use of good, powerful & insightful questions.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
I assess learning needs during the class lecture to see if the students understand the topic being discussed. I can observe and detect when the student is having a hard time learning the subject. When that happens I usually meet with the student one-on-one to discuss their learning needs.
I like to ask a lot of questions in my lectures, leading students to discover much of the course content on their own instead of just dumping it on them. The answers that are given and the ease or difficulty of engaging each student in the discussion give clues to the needs and abilities of individual students.
Oscar,
yes all of these are great ways to really assess where our students are & best help them.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
shawn,
yes, this is a great idea for an alternative assessment & provides even more value to the use of learning groups.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
Oberving group interaction can be an indicater of the level of interaction of students and employees.
Observing group behavior and interaction may give you an indication of their skill at interrelating with others.
It is important to asses student learning either through question and answer periods or by checks on learning through quizes. If the class is on a manule task have them conduct the task to see where they are in the process. If they can't complete the taks, as least they will have an idea as to where they are and what they need to focus on to complete the taks.
I teach a word processing class that includes projects like resumes and cover letters. I was somewhat surprised by the results of some of my students' work - in some cases, there were fundamental flaws with their command of English. I targeted these students, referred them back to the ELL instructors (having made it clear to the instructors that I was in no way making comments on their instructional abilities), and got them the help it was clear they needed. Now I require a writing sample at the beginning of each term in order to detect students who might have "slipped through the cracks".
Shane,
this really is a great way to get a feel for the class as a whole & the individual students.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
I believe pre-testing purposely using different styles of questioning, and different levels of vocabulary can give you an idea of student's learning needs.
Harrison,
this is a great approach as it allows you to understand the student better, know what has helped in the past, but also keeps you free from the early judgments or labels.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
We usually give a retention quiz and will also ask the previous instructor if there are any needs I should be aware of, but being careful to not make pre assumptions of the student, just to be aware.
David,
I too like the idea of pretesting for the reasons you stated & it also allows me to be a little flexible in my approach to the material. I may not need to spend as much time on one portion, but realize I need to spend longer on another.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
I sometimes will use a pre-test to assess how advanced the class is. Monitoring the test scores and evaluating trends of missed questions help me to determine how well the class understands the material and if I should change my techniques. Monitoring and assessing how well the student does on the lab assignments let me know how well the students can transfer what we learned in class to performing a hands on task
