Learners' Voices and Lesson Planning
A couple of questions for you:
How can we know what's important to LBS learners—how can we listen to learners' voices?
Do you take the time to ask your learners about their digital practices and technology needs?
LISTENING TO LEARNERS' VOICES:
A Participatory Element to Lesson Planning and Digital Integration
A Participatory Element to Lesson Planning and Digital Integration
Hearing about what learners might want to see in future lessons that integrate technology and help to sharpen digital skills entails reaching out to adult learners and hearing the needs of learners in their own voice.
The PAL working group felt that hearing what learners had to say and tending to their learners' voices could help make lesson planning a more participatory process while strengthening learner autonomy.
"It was nice to be involved in a project that didn’t focus on what we teach but on how we teach — including the reasons behind different strategies and the value of learner feedback."
Georgina, Instructor with the Ottawa Catholic School Board
How do you ensure that learners' voices and needs figure into your lessons?
The PAL working group did a Slido brainstorming activity with the questions posed above.
Here's what they came up with when it comes to ensuring learners' voices are a consideration when it comes to lesson planning...
I do periodic check-ins by going over their files to check change of mid-term or long-term goals.
Some of the learners have their own traumatic experiences they sometimes share with us and this awareness of trauma helps us avoid certain topics to choose as lessons.
I aim to identify learners' transferable skills, interests, and hobbies to engage them further.
I have a comments or feedback column in their attendance sign-in sheet where my learners can enter their thoughts and feelings.
I use frequent check-ins to ensure that learners' voices and needs are heard. Some simple questions that I ask are: "Does this make sense?", "Could you see yourself using this?", "Is this interesting"?
I challenge learners to think critically about skills that we learn in class by asking "How might this skill be applicable to a job?".
The questions are asked at intake to ensure that their goals are being met. A learner-centric approach to curriculum is built into our system.
I make a point of observing to discover surprising strengths in my adult learners and then attempting them to have them showcase these.
I encourage collaboration and peers helping each other to help strengthen the learner voice through peer interaction which helps to build confidence.
Action Research
ACTION: The process of doing something that improves one's practice
RESEARCH: Designing questions to pose to learners, collecting the data, applying findings to one's practice
Some members of the PAL working group wanted to explore learner voices more thoroughly and go directly to their adult learners to ask some targeted questions.
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