Community Learning Development Resource 101 – 02
IDENTIFYING THE LEARNING NEEDS OF PEOPLE
LIVING IN LOCAL COMMUNITIES
SUMMARY
How can we ensure that an individual, from whatever background, with whatever learning needs and within whatever context, can become the focus for our learning provision, our learning support and participation in community learning and community development?
How do we engage with them?
KEY IDEAS
- Whilst people often learn together, in groups and in a variety of group situations, what and how they learn is done individually.
- People learn best when they feel good about learning and when the learning addresses a concern, satisfies a need (solving a problem, making them feel better about themselves or providing a material benefit for them), or a want (Is this a lesser need – learning for leisure, enjoyment, social pleasure or interest?).
- Individuals may need help in identifying their own learning needs, and what it is they feel they need to learn, and have some internal motivation to learn.
- Individuals may not believe that they can learn – for some ‘learning’ is a threatening word, often reminding them of previous negative learning experiences. Some individuals may even deny that they can learn and need to rediscover that they can.
- Learning for pleasure or leisure is important in the lives of all adults, and occurs in many different ways, not just through attending formal learning experiences, e.g., ‘evening classes’.
- Learning needs can be addressed through relationships and social interaction, where learning is not the declared purpose (informal and non-formal learning).
- Identifying learning needs makes a crucial contribution to the initial planning of learning opportunities by workers and providers.
- Learning opportunities should be planned more from the position of identifying and assessing learning needs of people, rather than from the position of providers and workers, deciding independently of learners, what learning opportunities should be offered and what they should learn.
- It is important that those concerned to deliver learning opportunities, seek to connect with learners and find out their individual learning needs.
- Finding out about potential adult learners and their learning needs is a serious business and may require time, skill and effort.
Consider – what is the nature of the adult learning work we want to engage in; who do we want to work with:
- Do we seek to address the learning needs of any person within our local community?
- Are we concerned to address the learning needs of particular people within the local community?
- Do we want to address the learning needs only of those who already engage with us, e.g., our membership, or existing learners or users?
- Are we seeking to address particular learning needs?
- Are we clear as yet about what we are seeking to do – what the purpose is, in relation to learning?
How should we go about finding out what people in the community need or want to learn?
- I f we know them, we can ask them but don’t we need to think about how do we do this?
- Ask someone who can speak on their behalf – a representative or intermediary – can we trust them?
- Go out and make contact in the community, to find out what potential learners need and want – how do we do this?
- Make sure that we have a developed sense of listening and ways of capturing the ‘voice of learners’ through encouraging participation and feedback?
When people begin to learn with us, our interest in their individuality and their learning needs, continues.
- We should start from the position of their learning needs, recognising their prior learning and their own individual starting points, by carrying out an initial assessment.
- Our focus on the learner as an individual, should be maintained throughout their learning life with us.
- Understanding their learning needs enables us to respond in the right ways when we seek to enable them to make learning progress and to choose to move-on.
PROMPTS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION
- The identification and assessment of the needs of learners in local communities is often found by education and training inspectors to be a weaker area of provider practice – why might this be so?
- How does the behaviour and characteristics of agencies contribute to the exclusion of many adult learners from opportunities to learn?
- How might the nature of their community contribute to the exclusion of many local people from opportunities to learn?
- Can learning be a key process in enabling and supporting people to overcome the effects of inequality and exclusion?
- What is an ‘entitlement curriculum’ for local people and what is meant by ‘the adequacy of provision and services’?
- If we seek to draw people into community development or regeneration activity and want to enable them to participate, what are their learning needs likely to be?