Target learners in my context are mostly lecturers in the faculty, but I also need to keep in mind the needs of their target learners, i.e. the students they teach.
A way in which I try to understand the lecturers and the students is by regularly asking for feedback. I do this by asking staff to fill in surveys, asking for oral feedback (e.g. on what has gone well and what problems or challenges they have experienced) and by student surveys and feedback sessions. This approach has, for example, influenced the use of the PebblePad e-portfolio system with a large cohort of first year architecture students, with a move from open ended ‘Webfolios’ to a more scaffolded deployment of ‘Workbooks’. Similarly, on another course where students are on work placements outside the university, feedback from staff has led to my introduction of PebblePad ‘feedback templates’ to assist workplace mentors when responding to and signing-off student tasks.
Understanding the needs of target learners is crucial to being able to provide a good learning experience. Putting myself in the shoes of the target learner exposes the challenges they experience which, in turn, enables me to address those concerns and to tailor the environment and tasks to be appropriate for the learners.
Our focus as an institution is on student experience – and this extends further than people who have paid a fee. I am acutely aware of the needs of international students (i.e. those for whom English is a second language) and of learners with disabilities. For this reason I provide transcripts and captioning/subtitling on videos when possible. For example, I did all the captioning for the large number of films on the ‘Our Green City’ MOOC. I also made the khatwah.org website multilingual (English and Arabic) so that it can be used more widely by the learners who wish to access the courses found there.
Reflection
People learn in a variety of ways and have different needs at different times, so a one-size-fits-all approach to staff development and support is not suitable. I realise that to be effective I must provide a range of learning opportunities and approaches to meet as many of the diverse needs as possible. I aim to treat each member of staff as an individual and try hard to listen to and understand their individual needs. They come with their own ideas, preferences and constraints (e.g time constraints, technology preferences, and varying levels of digital literacy and confidence with technology) and it is important to understand these in order to know best to help and support them.
To find out about learners’ needs in one-to-one consultations with staff I conduct informal needs analyses through simple discussion and questioning. This helps me to gauge their ability and confidence as well as the needs of their module/programme. I always encourage staff to articulate the pedagogic goal they want to achieve.
Yet it is important to understand staff and students have many competing interests and appreciating these has lead to me adapting my practice in many ways.
I have changed practice with regard to the availability of the staff development workshops I run. Having previously been available only at set times, in response to staff saying they cannot attend at the published times (further evidence of understanding my learners) I have changed these to be available on request at any time. Furthermore, I now offer workshops to specific programmes and departments on request, to enable members of staff to attend with the colleagues they work most closely with.
A further change that I have introduced in my staff development work is moving away from click-by-click demonstrations (these are better provided as written instructions or screen capture videos, where they can be viewed easily several times) in favour of providing more case studies and authentic examples embedded within the university VLE. When it comes to clicking, I hand the mouse over to the learners (i.e. lecturers) and encourage them to explore the examples as this gives them greater control of what and how they learn, and recognises they are active agents in technology and learning design (rather than vessels waiting to be filled with information I provide).
Lastly, I recognise that lack of time is one of the biggest constraints on staff and students. For this reason I try to make guidance and supporting material available at the time and place it is required. For example, the Blackboard module template guidance is written into the template itself, where it can’t be missed; and the video guides I am producing for FET labs will be on kiosked tablet computers attached to the laboratory equipment itself, exactly where the students need it for ‘just in time’ learning.
Evidence
For evidence of my understanding of target learners see the following posts: