10 THINGS YOU MUST KNOW ABOUT YOUR LEARNERS BEFORE

CREATING YOUR COURSE

When it comes to planning and designing effective adult learning programs, it is important that we very

clearly understand who our target group of adult learners actually are so that we can design the training

to meet the group needs; and as we will discuss in later posts, their individual needs too.

Here is a list of differentiating factors you need to consider when it comes to planning out your training, how it’s going to be written and how it’s going to be delivered to ensure that you are meeting the basic

principles of adult learning and forming the base of an effective learning program:

Factor 1: The level and breadth of their previous work experience.

Understanding your learner’s previous vocational work or industry experience in the subject you are teaching is a critical

element of planning and preparing your adult learning program.

Factor 2: The level and previous experiences of their formal education.

By conducting a thorough pre-assessment on all learners, what you discover about their educational background can have a

profound influence on your overall training design and delivery.

Factor 3: Their socioeconomic background.The socio-economic status of your learners can impact everything

from language you use, case scenario examples you use, the activities you use, your contextualisation and even the images in

your presentation materials and handouts.

Factor 4: Their cultural background and needs.

The cultural background that your target group of learners come from is also a very important consideration. The smallest things can make a

huge difference to a training program’s success or monumental failure.

Factor 5: Their age and gender.This is an obvious consideration and does not warrant much explanation. Make sure your pre assessment process captures the age and gender of

your students so that you can ensure that your training content and program is designed to meet these differences.

Factor 6: Special educational needs.Designing effective adult learning programs also requires you to make

special adjustments to meet special educational needs. Such a judgement could include making fonts larger, having handouts on different colouredpaper, wearing hearing aid microphones, having a translator or support

teacher present, among many other SEN considerations.

Factor 7: Their motivations for learning.If we can take the time to understand why our group are likely to

be in our learning program at all, it will help us design the language in a way that continuously reinforces their motivations

for being there.

Factor 8: Their language literacy and numeracy needs.

By understanding where our learners sit on the ‘LLN’ scale, we can better design and deliver our training to not only ensure that they are not

excluded by their LLN skills but actually improve and build upon them by default through the teaching and learning activities you have selected.

Factor 9: Their learning styles modes and preferences.

When we consider the way that our learners prefer to learn, their most natural styles of acquiring new knowledge and skills, and the modality

within which they take on the greatest amount of learning; then we can be sure that we are developing effective adult learning programs.

Factor 10: Special Program ConditionsYour training program may have to be designed around

specific criteria, learning outcomes, performance elements and collect very specific data and evidence of competence.

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The list of considerations that must be made when designing and developing

effective adult learning programs could in essence be endless. However the list of 10

key influencing factors above will most certainly ensure that you have an extremely

fair chance of getting it right .