Planning to meet the needs of Learners in Education and Training - CET

|The initial assessment pin-points the learners individual needs. This can lead to additional support being

Initial assessment is the starting point of a learning journey. The information gathered provides a base on which to plan your learner’s progress. Initial assessment is very important so you find out the learners individual needs in order for you to support them appropriately.

Assessment plays a significant role in the learning experience of students. It determines their progression through their programmes and enables them to demonstrate that they have achieved the intended learning outcomes. It is assessment that provides the main basis for public recognition of achievement, through the awarding of qualifications and/or credit.

In the learning environment it is important to ensure that assessment arrangements can be adapted for a wide audience. People entering assessment all have individual needs. Someone these needs can be affected by physical or mental disability or other aspects of their personal make up. These factors can affect a person’s ability and capacity to interact with assessments so care should be taken to ensure that these factors are taken into account when they are assessed. Assessments should not just be made available in one form. This will limit many candidates’ abilities to achieve success at their assessment. I will now review different factors

Providing a rich and varied context is essential, tutors should utilize a range of different methods to engage all students interests and learning styles. Identifying and meeting the learners needs are important so that tutors can facilitate students learning and ensure that both the students and tutors meet the required goals. Each learner is unique and brings to the learning situation their own different learning style, knowledge set, past experiences and motivational levels. It is important for tutors to consider the level of knowledge and skill development attained by the learners prior to instruction through a variety of different types of assessment, in order to offer a high quality learning experience, delivered and resourced to suit the needs of the learner. Tutors can assess learner needs through numerous means, such as; informal and formal assessment strategies, pre-course interviews and learning style tests. This will allow tutors to tailor lessons and activities to support learners individual needs.

To deliver a useful, appropriate teaching session, the needs of the students must first be identified and understood. Whilst I deliver both accredited courses, with a set of specifications which must be met and achieved, and non-accredited courses, with less specific criteria and instead one overall aim or outcome, I need to plan and structure sessions differently depending on different students, in terms of content, pace and resources. This makes an initial assessment a vital part of any course.

Before any actual classroom teaching can take place, initial and diagnostic assessments must be carried out. These are paramount in agreeing individual learning goals, and planning the progression of the learner with the teacher.

An initial or diagnostic assessment establishes the starting point and ascertains the student’s previous skills and knowledge. This enables the student to see how much he/she achieves during the course, it also fosters a more reflective approach to learning and enables the teacher to effectively plan the individual student’s needs. The teacher can then review the students’ progress and achievements, which improves the quality of teaching

Tutoring is designed just for that particular client and his needs. Kim Bloomberg-Schamus’s approach is different. She asks her clients that after each exam, or essays is graded students are encouraged to bring in their exams to be reviewed. Therefore, going over each mistake to teach the student how to do the problem correctly. It is all about individualized attention that most other tutoring companies don’t have the time to do.

It is common place for a screening to take place prior to commencing the learning programme in order to identify whether learners may need additional support, as a result a diagnostic test will then identify specific areas of literacy, and numeracy learners may need to work on to achieve their main learning goals. Diagnostic testing helps to determine learning targets, and teaching/ learning strategies appropriate to ensure the learner achieves the learning outcomes.

By identifying these learning styles a tutor can ensure that the lesson plan become holistic by using a range of resources such as flipcharts, presentations, hand-outs, research activities and giving continuous praise and encouragement to all learners.

The purpose of an initial assessment is to firstly, make sure that a learner can enter the programme of study at a level that is appropriate to them. Secondly, these assessments also allow the learner to be able to plan their individual achievable learning goals. These initial assessments will become the framework of learners ILP’s (individual Learning Plans). They will also ensure that the learner provider and tutor can identify the gaps in learning sooner

Students have their own best way in effectively learning the lesson. With the diversity of students, the problem is each student has a preferred learning style. It becomes undeniably one of the reasons that make it difficult to achieve the best expected outcome out of teachers’ effort. However, teachers try to incorporate various teaching techniques to make every learning opportunity become productive, meaningful, and relevant for the learners.

1.1 Analyse the role and use of initial and diagnostic assessment in agreeing individual learning goals,

Once have identified the students needs and have planned and designed the course I can then deliver or facilitate the learning. I can use different styles and activities to keep the students interested. I can invite comments and discussions to enhance their learning. This could promote inclusion of the quietest of the students and also give me time to carefully observe and assess their learning . I may need ice breakers and energisers at times and also maintain any ground rules that may have been agreed at the beginning of the course by the students. I must conform to codes of practice at all times ensuring also that I promote respect, equality and diversity. I will also try to embed language, literacy, numeracy,and ict