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Motivating Learners Teaching vulnerable learners and those on community orders or probation 1

Motivating Learners Teaching vulnerable learners and those on community orders or probation 1

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Motivating Learners

Teaching vulnerable learners and those on community orders or probation

1

Motivation is central to learning

• Motivation improves attendance and retention – a big issue for people on probation or community

sentences (Martinez, 2001, 2002; Hollin et al, 2004)

• Motivation improves engagement in learning in the classroom

• Motivated learners are more likely to practice and apply learning outside the classroom as well

2Motivating learners

Why does learner autonomy matter?

• Adults need to know why they need to learn something

• Knowing the purpose of learning is important for long term goals, e.g.– What qualifications or skills are necessary to get a particular

job?– What qualifications or skills are needed to access a course?

… and for short term goals, e.g.– Does a calculation have to be exact, or an estimate? – Am I reading this to get an overview, or to find a particular

piece of information?

3Motivating learners

Principles for learner autonomy• Learners must move from being dependent on others

to being self-directing

• Learners should be involved in setting their own learning goals

• Learners should be supported in monitoring and adjusting their learning to achieve their goals

• Be careful, you probably agree with this but central targets, qualification requirements, and the use of generic learning materials may all encourage contradictory approaches

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Activity 1

• Autonomous learner - read the example of Joan and Kathleen (Activity 1)

• Discuss strengths and weaknesses and how it would fit into the practices in your organisation

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Five ways to improve motivation

1. Make the learner feel that if they work they can succeed (many learners feel helpless)

2. Make the learning materials interesting / relevant to the learner

3. Make the learning environment conducive to learning

4. Ensure key learning resources are available, well chosen and catalogued to support learning

5. Nurture the sense of a community of learners

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1. Working can help you succeed

Adult learners with weak basic skills, and offender

populations in particular, tend to lack confidence. This

is a corrosive feeling

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“Unless people believe they can produce desired effects by their actions, they have little incentive to act, or to persevere in the face of difficulties. Whatever other factors serve as guides and motivators, they are rooted in the core belief that one has the power to produce desired effects.”

(Bandura and Locke, 2003: p. 87)

8Motivating learners

• Literacy and numeracy learners have reported that of all the outcomes of being on a course, self-confidence was the most important

• Self-confidence was more important to them than gaining qualifications, and it acted as a key to learning (Tett et al, 2006, p79)

9Motivating learners

1. Helping learners to feel that they can succeed• Getting learners to talk about what they can do if they

make an effort is a good place to start• Next, give them strategies to help them with an

achievable task • Get them to monitor how the strategies help them to

complete the task– Eg drafting and redrafting. Learners are supported to write a

first draft and then can see their writing improve as they re-draft and receive feedback from others in the class

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Activity 2

• Read the Writing at the House excerpt (Activity 2)• Consider how this approach, or similar, helps

learners to see strategy use improving the quality of their work

• Can you think of examples in your own practice?

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Attributional re-training

• Techniques such as those used in Writing at the House are called attributional re-training

• People who lack confidence and have failed in the past often attribute success or failure to things outside of their control:– I can’t do this sort of thing, it’s too hard– I only did well on that because you helped me

– It doesn’t matter how hard you try, it’s just luck

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When learners feel confident, it helps them to:– Concentrate on the task at hand rather than worry

about failing– Cope with failures by retracing their steps to find

their mistake or by analysing the problem to find another approach

– Learn from mistakes

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Setting an example

• You can also try discussing with learners why they think they have not succeeded before, and what can be different this time

• You could talk about times when you lacked confidence in your own life – ‘When I was a new teacher and had trouble coming up with

activities that worked well in the classroom, at first I thought it was because I wasn’t really cut out to be a teacher, but by asking for help from other, more experienced teachers, I was able to improve my lesson planning skills.’

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• You can invite graduates of your programme who have done well to come back and give a short presentation to your current students

• Ask them to talk about what they thought about their academic abilities at the beginning of the programme and how that understanding has changed over time

Setting an example

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Activity 3

• Watch this three-minute DVD clip from the Prisoners Education Trust Learning Matters project, at

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ0lZBB0glQ• OR at• http://www.prisonerseducation.org.uk/index.php?

id=578

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2. How to make learning interesting and relevant

• Build on consultation with learners • Consultation can be part of individual tutorials, class

discussion, or projects• Exchange ideas with colleagues in your own

organisation and with colleagues elsewhere• Challenge learners – don’t make everything too easy• Let them succeed – don’t make everything too hard (for

example see tasks for proficiency & tasks for development, on the next slide)

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Proficiency and developmental tasks

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2. Techniques to make learning interesting and relevant

• Use practical or playful activities

• Allow learners to choose their own reading materials, e.g. give access to a well-stocked library. Readers are better at comprehending texts that are more interesting to them

• Present maths problems as part of real life situations, as these support our ability to solve problems

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Activity 4Discuss the following:•In your organisation’s provision for learners, how do you establish what motivates them? What more could you do? •Watch the first clip on PLIAS in this YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdyXrX2VrWw

•How do you exchange information with learners about what skills they need for employment? What more could you do?

•How do you introduce learners to new things and extend their interests? What more could you do?

•How can you share motivational activities with each other for use in teaching?

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3. Environments that help learning

Develop an atmosphere and culture that is conducive to learning

•Learners should feel relaxed and secure

•Introduce some flexibility to the day or lesson where possible

– The sort of flexibility found in the workplace is often attractive to learners (both younger and older)

•However, the focus on learning must be clear

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3. Environments that help learning

Develop relationships that are conducive to learning

•Build a positive relationship with your learners– Learners identify their tutor as a crucial person in making them

feel at ease, and view the relationship very positively

•Build a positive relationship between peers– Learners also see other learners as very important– Give opportunities for pair and group work and set out ground

rules for supportive working

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3. Ground rules for group work

• Discuss good ground rules with learners so that they feel ownership of ground rules. Emphasise:– the need to support each other's contributions– to listen – the need for everyone to contribute– the need to move the discussion on so that it achieves its

purpose

• Make use of resources on the Internet, eg:– http://ece.wpi.edu/analog/resources/

Establishing_Ground_Rules_for_Groups.htm

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Activity 5• Learners have reported the following barriers to learning:

– Transport– Finance– Childcare– Time constraints– Confidence– Drug or alcohol problems– Access to computers, books, paper and pencils– Greater variety of learning opportunities: short and flexible

courses, more intensive courses, drop-in centres

• Are there any barriers for your learners and which of these do you think you can address?

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3. Improving access to learning

• Learners on sentence in the community are likely to face a range of external issues that will impact on learning

• Learning providers cannot necessarily deal with all these issues

• But providers can help to address external issues by developing good networks with other service providers

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4. Making learning resources available: LiteracyLearners require the following literacy resources:•Well-chosen and catalogued texts•Fact, fiction, other (newspapers, magazines, etc)•For non-fluent readers it is good to have access to texts which they can read fairly well (eg can read 90 out of the first 100 words in the book). Ranking texts by difficulty will assist here. Reading a lot is critical to developing reading fluency•For fluent readers other factors will be important, and they can probably work with a more traditional classification system by subject and author

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4. Making learning resources available - Numeracy

The following resources are likely to be useful:

•Thinking Through Mathematics https://www.ncetm.org.uk/online-cpd-modules/ttm

– suggests using posters to show all the thinking, ‘warts and all’. Learners can solve a problem two different ways on their poster, for others to comment on

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4. Making learning resources available – Numeracy

• Mini-whiteboards (cheap small plastic boards, one for everyone) can be used for whole class discussions‒ They allow new kinds of questions, eg. ‘show me…’‒ Learners can be asked to hold up their ideas, to show

what every learner thinks‒ They enable presentation of written and/or drawn

responses‒ They encourage rough working that may be quickly

erased

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5. Nurture a community of learners

• Learners in the community typically report that the social side of learning is important to them.

• Just as professionals find that working and reflecting together is both motivating and enriching, so too do learners.

• Provide opportunities for learners to work together:– Pair or group work– Work on projects– Class discussions– Giving each other feedback on their work

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Session overview

• The importance of motivating learners cannot be over-emphasised

• You have discussed ways of developing motivated and autonomous learning

• How will you take this forward?– Will you change anything about your own teaching?– Will you work with others to e.g. develop resources, or to adapt

how you assess and guide learners?

Record any Action Points

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Materials in this CPD were devised by: Brian Creese (numeracy), Jay Derrick (assessment and embedding), Jane Hurry (motivation and exit strategies), Maria Kambouri (ICT), Irene Schwab (literacy) and John Vorhaus (continuing professional development and learner contexts) at the Institute of Education.

Helpful suggestions and comments were made by Joe Shamash and Olivia Varley-Winter at City & Guilds Centre for Skills Development.

If you would like to contact us please email

Jane Hurry at [email protected]

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The CPD FrameworkAn outline of the sessions

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