Knowing and responding to your students’ diverse needs
Contextual Background
I teach repeated lessons across 22 MA + BA courses in the SDT at LCF. For example, in autumn 23/24 I was teaching the same 3hr session 2/day, once a week, for 5 weeks. In each session the cohort is different: they have varied abilities, experience, and skillsets.
This presents three key challenges:
- A multi-skilled group is a complex enough challenge.
- Without prior knowledge I must assess skills and make the session applicable to the cohort.
- Repeating myself has led to feelings of boredom and mundanity.
Evaluation
I cannot discuss all the key challenges here, the focus will be on 2nd challenge, with some exploration of 3rd.
Admittedly, the previous approaches were limited —
- During a section of the Portfolio workshop I asked students about their InDesign skill (I now realise this is a type of formative assessment) and amend the session from a basic introduction to expert tips for specific use cases.
This has worked well, allowing the students to guide the lesson relative to their skill; however, we always start from the lowest skill in the room which is likely to be less engaging to those with higher ability in the software. - There has been no active method to combat the third challenge other than perseverance.
Moving forwards
There are many strategies that I am excited to practice —
Firstly, the use of in-class formative assessment (Wiliam, 2011; Black and Wiliam, 2009) could be practiced confidently and playfully, using the evidence to “adapt the teaching work to meet learning needs” (Wiliam et al., 2004, p. 10).
That said, there may be limitations because my sessions are often one-off supplementary teaching outside of units, therefore the ability to effectively assess mid-lesson might be hindered by course direction or limited student contact.
Furthering the thoughts of Dylan Wiliam (2018) I could attempt to create what he calls ‘inclusive differentiation’, which is a way of setting tasks that have an increasing skill level, difficulty, or intensity, and are suggested to the students depending on their own ability. These graduated tasks could be employed across various BA/MA years and courses, as well as potentially within the sessions themselves.
These tasks could begin to form a collection of cascading Learning Outcomes (LOs), which would be employed varyingly, depending on both skill and ability, rather than using the sometimes arbitrary markers of BA y1/2/3 etc.
This next suggestion is an approach could both make a quick connection with newly met students and add some variety to combat the mundanity of me teaching repeated lessons. The approach could be to add in playfulness. It could be to add in playful critical reflection of something, perhaps even gamification, and I’m excited to “work intentionally with scaffolding and promoting playfulness in everyday academia” Nørgård & Moseley (2021). There are few examples of how to practically go about this, but perhaps this is an opportunity for new ground.
Musing on this new approach, I wrote a poem reflecting on LCFs recently opened building, which made me realise that the mundanity has perhaps been exasperated by the structure itself. The poem is included as an addendum.
As Professor Takashi Sasakawa said in a recent BBC Radio 4 show “Enjoyment is a source of energy and motivation in the workplace” (2024) and I’m excited to be invigorated in mine.
Addendum
References
Black, P. and Wiliam, D. (2009) “Developing the theory of formative assessment,” Educational Assessment Evaluation and Accountability, 21(1), pp. 5–31. doi: 10.1007/s11092-008-9068-5.
The Failure of the Future: The Economic Dreamland (2024) BBC Radio 4, 23 January. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001vm45 (Accessed: 17 March 2024).
Nørgård, R. T. and Moseley, A. (2021) “The Playful Academic An editorial,” The Journal of Play in Adulthood, 3(1). doi: 10.5920/jpa.954.
SSAT (2018) Dylan Wiliam talks… inclusive differentiation. May 3. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OThNtcCqu4c (Accessed: March 14, 2024).
Wiliam, D. et al. (2004) “Teachers developing assessment for learning: impact on student achievement,” Assessment in Education Principles Policy and Practice, 11(1), pp. 49–65. doi: 10.1080/0969594042000208994.
Wiliam, D. (2011) “What is assessment for learning?,” Studies in educational evaluation, 37(1), pp. 3–14. doi: 10.1016/j.stueduc.2011.03.001.