Engagement and Active Learning in the LBS Context

A QUESTION FOR YOU...

How can you plan a lesson so that adult learners are meaningfully ENGAGED with the activities, tasks, technology, their peers and with you?

After you've reflected on the above question, take a look at what the PAL working group members think and what other supporting bits of research reveal about engagement and learning...

Active Learning for Skills Strengthening 

MAKING ROOM FOR ACTIVE LEARNING IN LBS 

Whether you are teaching fully online, delivering instruction through a hybrid model, or are fully back in a physical classroom, planning an engaging lesson where skills are honed, connections are made, and meaningful uses of digital technologies are also incorporated is likely what you aspire to. 

 Adult learners in Ontario's LBS programs do indeed have individual goals and are on specific goal paths; however, moments to engage learners with each other—no matter the level of the learners—reinforce learning.




"To be wholly engaged in the learning experience requires moving beyond engagement with academic content to include purposeful and meaningful interactions with peers and instructors." (p.21)

Beattie, E. N. (2022). The Power of the Positive: Enhancing Online Student Engagement for Adult Literacy Learners. Adult Literacy Education, 4(1), 20-35. 

It is the hope of the PAL working group to assist practitioners in thinking about incorporating activities for learning and collaboration as they design and plan their  lessons. 

Adding active learning activities and purposefully integrating technology that engages, helps to add depth to learning while reinforcing new skills—individual skills and skills practiced with others.

An engaging lesson flow ensures that LBS learners are actively honing their skills in a manner where they are engaging and working with each other and with various digital tools. 


REMINDER:  Although much of our practice is rooted in specific tasks and milestones for each learner file, it must be noted that when learners collaborate and move through well-planned activities within the flow of a lesson, a multitude of skills are practiced, honed and cemented.

HERE ARE A FEW RESEARCH TIDBITS:
Collaboration Sharpens a Host of Skills

“Collaborative work can indeed be one of the effective strategies in this new [online] learning environment. There are many opportunities to foster collaborative learning as a way for learners to work together on assignments or tasks, build knowledge collectively, think critically and support each other’s understanding. Interaction within online educational environments has long been advocated as conducive to learning.


Recommendations for online learner engagement include building interactive opportunities between:


Source: Designing and Delivering Effective Online Instruction: How to Engage Adult Learners (Bloomberg, 2021), p. 58



Social constructivism theory holds that active learning best takes place when the construction of knowledge occurs in collaboration with others.


Source: Active Learning Activities. Centre for Teaching Excellence, University of Waterloo. 

Readiness to engage—taking the pulse of your learners and easing them into a lesson

How We Take the Pulse of Our Learners - Readiness for Learning

Before diving in to collaborate or to take part in the formal portion of a lesson, the PAL working group underscored the need for creating a welcoming safe space where adults entering a physical classroom or a Zoom/Teams remote classroom can ease in to the lesson itself.

Building a learning community and allowing for the settling in of each adult entering the learning space is paramount to s a successful lesson.

Here are a few ways the LBS practitioners in the PAL working group help put learners and ease and prepare their learners for the active learning ahead.



QUESTION FOR YOU: Do you include active learning in your practice?

IF ACTIVE LEARNING IS NEW TO YOU,  take a look at this clickable bulleted list of active learning activities and strategies...


NOTE: This clickable list hails from the Northern Illinois University's Instructional Guide, which can be used and modified for the LBS classroom ...



Do you include any active learning moments in your lesson planning?

For more active learning ideas, CHECK OUT THE FOLLOWING Canadian active learning resources:



Starting with Learner Strengths
An empowering approach for the LBS context

In our LBS programs, we  often work with adults who have entered the physical or remote classroom with some skills gaps, and often with anxiety or fears around returning to an educational setting .  Some of our learners have also experienced trauma and a new learning experience that feels threatening can stop learning and lesson flow. Assisting adult learners in (re-)discovering the strengths they already possess or identifying the talents they bring to their learning is instrumental in helping to settle into the activities or tasks at hand.

The Reinert Center for Transformative Teaching* and learning defines strengths-based education as "a learner-centered approach to teaching that helps students identify, articulate and apply individual skills relevant to their learning needs. Based on research from social work, positive psychology and business, a strengths-based approach can help build student confidence, encourage efficacious behaviors, and support life-long learning pursuits."  

*Consult the Center's  Resource Guide for more details.

Consider the following quotes from research on a strengths-based approach to education...

Do you find moments to bring in your adult learners' strengths to the lesson itself?

"A strengths perspective assumes that every individual has resources that can be mobilized toward success in many areas of life and is characterized by “efforts to label what is right” within people and organizations." (p.1)

Lopez, S. J., & Louis, M. C. (2009). The principles of strengths-based education. Journal of College and Character, 10(4).

"In strength-based practice, clients are appreciated as the experts on their own lives. They know their circumstances best. They are steeped in their issues and know what will work for them in reaching for change. Positioned as the central change agent, the client is supported to draw upon personal power and a heightened sense of self to activate a new way of being in the world. The practitioner’s role is a facilitative one." (p.12)

Waterhouse, P., Virgona, C., & Wilson, L. (2008). Working from strengths: Venturing towards strength-based adult education. Adelaide, SA: NCVER. 


The strengths-based approach has left a lasting impression on me. Working with vulnerable groups might naturally incline one to focus on weakness, viewing clients as individuals with deficits; however, if educators intentionally identify and harness learners’ assets to empower them, it could be remarkably influential and effective.

—Leila Naderi, PTP



Another Resource on Learner Variability and Learner Strengths

Within the Learner Variability Navigator tool from the Digital Promise initiative—which works across research, technology, and practice to shape a more equitable and innovative future of learning—a strengths-based approach is defined as "one where educators intentionally identify, communicate, and harness learners' assets to empower them to flourish".  

Holding the Paradox of Strengths and Gaps for our Learners

The PAL working group felt that LBS practitioners are often able to attune their learners' lack of confidence, their fears and need to sharpen certain skills, while at the same time being highly plugged in to the moments when the adult attending their programs 

BUILDING CONFIDENCE DESPITE GAPS - FINAL.pdf

USE THIS CHART AS A REMINDER to go in slow increments as learners are exposed to technology.

TAKE A LOOK at page 2 of this PAL Resource that looks to harness strengths during the course of  a lesson, while also tending  to learners voices and needs...

Bringing Learners’ Voices, Needs and Strengths to the Lesson - FINAL.pdf

Fostering confidence in learners may also require some innovative communication methods to ensure that instructor and learner connect...

READ ABOUT how Smita uses a digital app called TextNow to connect with learners who may need extra attention and guidance. 

Using an easy-to-use digital tool that learners feel comfortable and empowered using also helps keep communication between practitioner and learner in the strengths-based sphere. 

TextNow app.pdf