Education and Training Prep Course

45 videos, 3 hours and 16 minutes

Course Content

Understanding learners needs

Video 10 of 45
3 min 20 sec
English
English
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So we are going to look at understanding learning needs. Now, this comes up in a lot of our education training courses and a lot of the units have components to this about how we can recognise individual learner needs. Now, some of the questions ask us, "Why is it important to identify these and how we can support them with that?" So the sort of stuff we are looking for would be if an individual comes into your session and they may be dyslexic. Dyslexia is an umbrella term; everyone's dyslexia is individualised for them. So they may have very specific needs, but it is a very, very much a specified need for that person. It impacts on learning, impacts on the assessment, and where we might have to change an assessment to help meet the needs of the learner; that can come into play within that.

So dyslexia is one part, you have got dyscalculia which is numerical; so individuals who have problems with numbers. So this again is something we have to consider when we are using a type of questioning we might be using; should be using multiple-choice, or should we use numbers or letters, which... So either way, if someone is with dyslexia, struggle with letters, someone with dyscalculia will struggle with numbers. But it is again, an identifiable need for an individual in some courses. Other areas we may come across, you may have learners who may have hearing or visual impairments. So within that, we got to look at what can we do within our classroom to support our learners with these identifiable needs. So it could be making sure that when you are teaching if we are moving around the room, we do not stand with a sunlit window behind us because that will shadow our face, and if someone is doing some lip-reading because of a hearing impairment, it could stop them from being able to fully understand what we are talking about.

Other areas we are coming to; it could be a physical disability, it means that we may have to ensure adequate space for an individual to get into a classroom. We may not be able to hold sessions on the first floor because especially if they have not got lifts. So there's all sort of other implications that come in with if someone has a physical disability, how can we support and meet that person's needs. We can go down English as the second language, that can be an identifiable need, especially if we are using terminology which is not a level of understanding for someone who is learning English, so it is about the subject as well, what we may be teaching.

There are other needs that individuals may have: It could be their financial implications while they are coming on course; it could be medical implications that they have got a medical condition. We set up... Our ground rules have established that there is no eating in the classroom, but you may have someone who is diabetic and has to eat at regular intervals because to keep their sugar level and so it is something that we have to take on board to consider if it is been identified. So that is what we need to clarify within this is when it states about a learner's needs, it is looking at the needs that are very specific for that individual, whether it be a learning need, physical need, or some area where they need support with. Is it identified correctly and do we now understand when we are writing this in our assignments that we are getting the proper terminology in there?