Challenges

Providing a suitable degree of challenge for learners is a key ingredient in enabling them to make progress.

For learners, responding to challenge means undergoing a process of discovery. It prompts them to:

  • develop new skills
  • acquire new knowledge
  • become more confident and independent learners; and
  • learn new things about themselves.

E-technology can help learners expand their horizons in a whole variety of ways. Below are some case studies. Subject Learning Coaches can also download and add their own to these to use with their colleagues.

One day, Dominique's community group was wondering how many places round the world had the same name as their own. After using an atlas, they discovered one in Kenya and another in Nova Scotia. After some research on the Internet, they managed to make contact with groups in both places. At first they kept in touch by e-mail, but now they have a shared message board. Each group is writing about the history of their town for the others to read. When one group posts some writing in the evening, it's there for one of the others to read in the morning. There are plenty of things to think about - how similar or different their communities' experiences have been; why all three places have the same name and so on.

Now the learners in Dominique's group are asking to learn digital photography so that they can take pictures of local people and places and post them on the net for the other two groups to see.

Jack says, 'I definitely want to improve the way I write. I never thought I'd be doing this sort of thing, but now I want to use more words to describe what it's like here.'

Timothy has been attending ICT classes. He says, 'I was every accountant's nightmare. I'm a self-employed window cleaner, and the business is growing. I have a team of four people working for me. I left school with no qualifications so I couldn't do the accounts. I just used to dump a carrier bag full of bits of paper on the accountant just before the taxman's deadline every year. Thanks to this class, I've learned to go much further than I ever thought. I can do spreadsheets and do my own books now. I send them to the accountant electronically and I answer all her queries the same way.'

Towards the end of a course on Art Nouveau, learners worked in groups or on their own to prepare a presentation on a designer or architect whose work interested them. Some chose Charles Rennie Mackintosh, another Phoebe Anna Traquair, another René Lalique and so on. Learners made their presentations using an electronic whiteboard. They used their own text, and images that they had downloaded previously from the Internet and stored in a personal file. They used the electronic pointer to highlight to the group important features of the buildings or artefacts that they were talking about.

Their tutor briefed them about copyright issues.

Davy said afterwards, 'This is the first time I've ever stood up in front of people and talked like that about anything. That alone was worth the course fee.'

Links

For ideas and practical help on how to make the most of e-technology, click here:
Further development