Hello
I have recently started an L&D programme with DPG and am looking for any methods of delivery, scenarios and advice which people may have come across regarding 'Teaching Diverse Students'.
Professionally, one of my biggest challenges, is the ability to apply learning and meet learning objectives with a very diverse group of delegates.
The biggest challenge I face is managing time, whilst keeping people engaged. I may have a senior manager within the audience whose english verbal/written understanding is much stronger than another delegate.
The challenge:
How do you keep both sets of delegates engaged knowing you have to balance your time/delivery style to each, to ensure you achieve your objectives and learning?
Any help / comments people have would be most welcome!
Regards
Chris
Replies
Thank you all for your comments - all very useful.
I have tried and tested a few new approaches recently and found some to be effective and some less effective.
I have discovered that my particular language barrier within training can often be genuine but also, and I believe this is a skill, identifying which members of your audience are using the language as an excuse for not wanting to engage and involve themselves. I have always delivered/facilitated courses with large amounts of humour and I use this now to gauge peoples level of understanding; for example I may begin a session with light hearted jokes and a large number of delegates involve themselves in the jokes/non-work related topics but not some of the other "less interestesting" topics.
Suddenly, I begin to talk about relative topics within the workplace and I find it fascinating that people then hide behind their language barriers and put up an even bigger barrier with the reason of 'I can't understand you'.
This becomes difficult to manage but your comments are very true Kevin with talking quietly to delegates during coffee/lunch - something I am already doing however I will approach a little differently now in combining the two things above. I am trying to encourage others to self-manage and take ownership as much a possible.
Alison/Kevin, thanks for the advice with group interaction; this is useful advice but unfortunately not always practicable but I will carry this forward. Combining groups/co-facilitating is not an option I have unfortunately but food for thought for the future!
Identifying more about your delegates prior to courses and adapting/tailoring/printing materials to suit is a great idea and perhaps not something I had thought of before. Sometimes it's difficult to get such information in time for various courses but something I will pay particular attention to.
Mike - I'm not really sure I can draw too much from the slides in terms of details but I agree with your note on similarities/differences between child/adult learning; I personally don't believe are hugely different when it comes to behaviours. Appreciate people learn in different ways when it comes to relating to personal experience, desire/hunger to learn etc but again a fascinating observation for me is I find adult learners often behave like children in the environment we are delivering/facilitating in. Managing this behaviour can be quite difficult when you are forced to take the "naughty student / teacher" approach and people withdraw themselves, deny all knowledge, won't back down and admit they are wrong and particularly with adults, are overly complacent... One of the challenges and kicks that gets me out of bed and into L&D!!
I am keen to experiment with new ways as well as researching and practising suggestive accelerated learning advice above - I am keen to keep a blog of this and may share some entries in future!
Thank you all for the advice...
A blog sounds like a great idea Chris and would be great CPD evidence as well as helping other people on this subject. Look forward to reading and if you need a hand with how the blogs work on the community, please let me know
Hi Chris,
Whether teaching or facilitating learning, getting to know your participant(s) before the programme begins is crucial. Here we can identify anything which may prevent full participation and inclusivity. I like to use Colin Rose's 9 step model of Accelerated Learning.
Recently I've google translated handouts. Ensured activities and discussions do not exclude anyone, made sure that any hand outs, case studies etc are not gender biased or provide stereotypes. Also making sure that all necessary facilities are available to satisfy need. e.g prayer.
Building Rapport is also crucial thus promoting honest conversation and ensuring nothing is left unaddressed. A contracting exercise helps here. Also, constant observation will help identify progression and potential problems, which can then be raised confidentially and in private. Building in regular check in's with participants will help here too.
Finally, adjusting assessment methods to suit learners e.g. taped interview instead of a written piece of work is now common practice and is an acceptable process used by many qualification awarding bodies.
I have worked in several different schools teaching science (mainly Chemistry and Physics, but sometimes also Biology and occasionally Maths) at secondary level where this is a constant challenge.
I learnt it takes good planning, good management and sometimes a change in approach.
In my first school, as a new teacher I decided to team up with another teacher who was in the room next to me. We would put two classes together and together teach them, each of us taking up a different pre-agreed role. For example one of us might lead the class and the other would identify and help slower learners. The lead teacher would introduce the subject and the lesson plan and get the class going with the experiments and then look after the quicker learners and the average learners.
Depending upon the subject and the learning objectives we would either put the students into mixed ability groups or let them choose their own groups. Sometimes they would be working individually.
We would take it in turns regarding the roles. All this took a lot of planning and preparation but it was worth it. We also learnt a lot from each other. Some teachers found this difficult to start with, as they weren't used to sharing their classroom "space", but gradually relaxed and learnt to enjoy it.
In another school where the classes were much bigger to start with, and I couldn't arrange to share as the students would never have all fitted into the same room, I prepared 3 different lesson plans. I printed out pictorial handouts with extra instructions for the anyone who needed them, gave out the main class instructions to everyone and had extra challenges for the quickest learners to take up once they had completed the main piece of work. I found myself spending more time with the slowest learners at the start of a practical to get them going and to make sure they knew what to do and why, and more time with the quickest learners towards the end, to challenge them with the extra work. I always felt the middle of the class may have been slightly neglected but I got round everyone during the lesson to make sure they were progressing satisfactorily and everyone seemed happy with the arrangement. Students were not always in the same group so had opportunities to interact at different levels.
In another school I found that certain slow learners had a helper assigned to them. This was brilliant, especially as often the helper would happily help more than one child, allowing me to keep the rest of the class going and not have to spend too much time with the absolute slowest at the expense of the others.
In my adult learning classes I find that the quickest learners are very patient and let me go at the pace of the slowest learner when I need to when delivering content, but will pipe up and ask challenging questions and will readily address the more challenging practical aspects of whatever I am training out. We have group discussions and the staff learn a lot from each other. I consider myself to be facilitating the sessions so that each individual can get as much as they can from them.
I find that it is important to change activities often, give everyone a chance to participate and to remain as light hearted and as encouraging as possible so as not to embarrass the slow learners.
Interesting topic Chris . I agree that adult learners have some responsibility to ask and stretch themselves within a session. I have found that getting some small group work or pairs work going can give the experienced /knowledgeable learner scope to use their experience to help the less experienced.
The classic answer is of course to include 'stretching' options in the session plan for those who need it.
Hi Chris
This is a very interesting topic and one close to my heart as I have a son who is in a class with children of mixed abilities and always moans that he feels he doesn't get stretched enough or that he is bored and his mind wanders. He then starts to chat and gets in trouble for being disruptive. It's the same challenge to some degree in adult learning environments as you may get a group of learners together who are very diverse all with individual needs and like education curriculums these programmes /sessions / workshops are design and developed in a standard - one size fits all fashion.
This is partly due to time but I am a firm believer in understanding your audience and tailoring the learning activities to suit individuals needs as much as possible. In reality this isn't always the case or possible however as adult learners we need to make the most of every opportunity provided and take accountability for our own learning. It's the shift away from trainer spoon feeding and true facilitation that makes people think about what they're learning and being clear on what the expectations are and how the learning links to the objectives. Ultimate whatever is learned needs to translate in to a change in behaviour or developing new skills that are in to practice - in the work environment we want to see training translate in to improved performance.
Whilst this is for primary school I think the themes can be translated in to adult learning environments as well. In fact if you were taking this and making an 'adult learning' version how would it differ and what else would you include as a guide for other Learning Professionals?