Planning and Enabling Learning.
Rationale
The following is research that I carried out is relating to four main points. The first being Negotiating with learners, when we first meet with a learner we conduct an initial assessment and a on line test for functional skills, this allows us to check on previous learning and any under pinning knowledge they already have, thus allowing us to make sure the learning will be set at the right level for that particular learner. When we are sure we know this we can discuss with the learner what targets we are going to set them, this would include goals and actions we want them to reach, we want the learner to achieve so would make the targets SMART so they are
achievable to the leaner, in turn this would help to keep the learner motivated in the learning environment.
Having started with the internet I looked at various sites detailing the reasoning and methods of negotiating with learners in respect of initial assessments and agreeing goals and actions.
During my research I found a site detailing how negotiating with learners has changed over time in regards to higher education. This can, however, be considered for other areas of education.
The website (www.heacademy.ac.uk) looks at a publication by Mac McCarthy for ‘Higher Education for Capability’. (Originally from Laycock et al 1992)
Within in this it is considered how learning contracts are used. McCarthy considers the factors affecting negotiating with learners and believes the ability to negotiate is affected by:
* the established view of education within an organisation
* the established view of how the organisation operates
* personal factors which influence the extent to which the teacher feels comfortable negotiating with learners
* the demands of the course which defines the limits of what can be negotiated and to what extent.
Inclusive learning is the next subject for research one that I conducted a micro teach for, this is a huge subject area that I will try to condense into a few words. Delivery methods
I consider these to be valid and interesting points but wanted to discover more methods of negotiation, I therefore looked towards the Learning Skills Council for further information regarding the starting point of initial assessment. Wanting to gather more information on methods and reasoning for initial assessment I discovered a useful publication from them (Initial assessment, Learning Skills council. They state that a good initial assessment must be done early on