Diversity and Pedagogy - Educational Needs of the Class or Training Group - Essay Example

Educational Needs of the Class/Training Group Name: Tutor: Course: Institution: Date: Knowledge acquisition is never an easy thing. If that were so, knowledge dispensation is also as difficult and one has to go beyond just trying to feed the students with information in the name of giving them knowledge. One important thing is to identify the different needs of the individual students as well as the needs of the whole class as a group. The reason for considering the needs of a class as a whole and beyond identifying the needs of the class is the fact that the needs of an individual student will eventually affect the other students. Therefore, it is important to introduce some needs into the class environment. The training group that is in discussion in this group has imminent educational needs. One such need is the cultural diversity. Cultural diversity can and does work in two ways, either in helping the group increase its learning opportunities and learning abilities or by limiting these abilities and thus making learning a much more difficult thing to achieve. Since the group is to some extent diverse culturally, the person handling this group will need to come up with ways to help the group to increase its learning opportunities. One way to achieve this is to include a less formal environment in the lesson and asking the students to share their culture in the attempt to identify the as many similarities as possible (Wilson). This would work well because despite the many differences that exist between different cultures, there are always many similarities that the members of the group can identify. The point however is to minimize tension and promote teamwork among the group members. This is in recognition that the teacher should than anything function as a tool to facilitate learning rather than necessarily dispense the knowledge. If the person handling such a group were able to facilitate an effective teamwork in among the group members, the members would be teachers unto themselves through sharing of knowledge and ideas and therefore would not need individual coaching. This would mean that the teacher would not have to address the individual problems of each student but the students will support each other and fill in the gaps that the teacher cannot fill. Language is also a big challenge in the learning environment. If the language of instruction is different from the students’ first language, the student will most likely lack access to his or her language acquisition. English as a Second Language (ESL) students have more difficulties in their knowledge and skill acquisition because they have to first of all learn the language of acquisition and then their also have to interpret facts to be able to make sense of them. Since the learning needs of one individual, also, leads to the learning needs of the others also affected, the needs of the indigenous student will affect the learning needs of the other in several ways. Because of this, the rest of the group will have to learn at the pace of the indigenous student. Consequently, there is a reduced learning pace of the whole group. The solution for this would be to focus on the skill-based learning, which will help the student start, by focusing on the main idea in a practical way before looking at it in theoretical way. The other students will be of great help in helping the student to overcome his linguistic problem and thus this takes the whole thing back to the issue of teamwork. Given the nature of the group, that is; they probably have not met before because they are from different companies. In addition, they are in class that will last only a few days, have different cultural backgrounds and grown up people unlike children who usually have not developed biases and prejudices about other people, the group will need more effort to forge team spirit. English as a Second Language (ESL) students have more learning needs in the area of social interactions than the other students. For a learning group with an individual with problems in reading the written word, the lesson would have to take consideration that this student may rag behind and left by the other students in the application of theoretical principles; this is because the student is supposed to identify these principles form the texts provided. Again, given the short period within which the group will have to complete the lesson, the student may not have enough time to improve his reading skills in order to be competent in the class. As a result, to help the student would mean that the student should get help with the visual learning aids to make sure that the student is grasping the idea of the course. The other students can be handy in this area by explaining to the student what they understand and therefore the need for teamwork among the learning group members would again be very important. The short period in which the course would have to be learnt leaves no room for the student with reading limitations to increase their abilities in this area. Nevertheless, they can definitely be used as an opportunity for the other students to display whatever skills and knowledge they have earned by allowing them to demonstrate and explain them to the student. This will not only relieve the teacher the burden and thus give him the time to focus on more issues that are critical but will also offer the student a more relaxed way to catch up. This is on whatever he or she may be lagging behind the other students because learning from the other students is less tense than learning form the teacher himself (Godfrey, 2010). The other learning need that will automatically emerge in such a group will definitely be the lack of confidence for the students. It is good to not that these students are not young learners but adults who besides having so many other issues that they have to deal with alongside learning, they may also be suffering from lack of confidence due to the old belief that learning is only fit for young minds. While it is true that young minds are better in learning, it is also important to note that older people are also advantaged in a learning environment because they maturity and experience allows them to understand and interpret facts in a better way than younger people. It would then be important to not only put this in mind but also to make the point of using this information to boost their confidence and assure them that they are more than equipped for the task. Lack of this kind of confidence can lead to very poor results and therefore it would be necessary for this to be taken seriously. To address this properly, the teacher or any other person handling the students should be ready to employ all tactics to boom the confidence of the group without necessarily making them overconfident as to make them not put the needed effort to learn. The nature of the group also means that the members may also be limited on their time. Some members may not be able to attend all the lessons and therefore this will affect their efforts to succeed in achieving the aims of the course. Because these people are active mangers and their time is bound to other important things such as carrying out their responsibilities as mangers, it would be difficult to manage such a learning group. This also points out to the earlier mentioned fact that the needs of one person also leads to the changing of the needs of the larger group. For example, the inability of the group to attend all the lessons due to time constraint may mean that the whole group’s learning will be affected slightly to help accommodate the one person or the this special need of the one individual can be ignored to help the group benefit completely but in the process the one person loses badly. This is another opportunity for the whole group to work together as a team to help the student to overcome the problem. This is very important for these students, because being leaders (managers) mean that teamwork and leadership skills are very important things to learn not only in a theoretical base but also in a practical base. Part II The northern territory education system has a rich history. Due to its ethnic diversity and the presence of both indigenous citizens and non-indigenous citizens, bilingual instruction has always been used. Many people have criticized this approach and claims has been made that the use of indigenous languages for formal instruction is not only inappropriate but also incompetent because it makes the students less competent in a global economy. However, as (Marich, 2010)the government has avidly protected this approach by claiming that the use of bilingual approach to education allows the students are able to contribute back to the society in better and more effective ways. Because of this, the bilingual approach has been maintained and continues to be used in formal instruction. This has several effects to education because, some of which are positive and other negative. For instance, with bilingual instruction in place, the problem posed by the inadequacy of English as Second Language (ESL) students is no longer a problem to either the student or the class. Therefore, the indigenous student would have no issue because he would not need to learn English for him to access formal instruction. However, the negative part of the bilingual program in the case would be the problem of overcoming the problem of several students with different ethnic backgrounds. In short, the ability of the bilingual program to be of much help is only when the whole class or group is made up of indigenous students who have problems with English as a language of instruction. The northern territory education system recognizes the prior skills and knowledge that a person may have in a certain area. This is in accordance with the Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) policy that allows for a person’s earlier or prior skills and knowlege being considered and recognised when takign a course at the tertailly level (Department of Employment, 2004). This recognition does not take into account how the skills were earned but only looks to determne that the person has the said skills. This is a very friendly policy especailly for the working class who may want to update their skills without necesarily having to go through the whole system. For instance, the if a manger has been in the mangementr for a logn time and through experience he or she has gained skills and knowlegde relevantr to his or her field, these skill can be added togehter with the other skills learnt in scgool to earn the manger a certificate. the effect of this to the case study’s group learning is that the mangers may not have to attend all the lesons becasue they may have learned some of the basic skills while in their line of work. For example, the manager who is only able to attend only eight of the ten lessons may not force the whole class to reshedule their paln to suit him becase he probably will be able to cover up for the missed lesson with his experience and thus no inconvinience the whole group. As a result, the plan put in place to allow the whole group to accomodate this manager may nolonger be necesary if the lessons the manager will be missing are the ones he ahs alredy had practical skills with. References Department of Employment, E. a. (2004). Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL). Darwin: Department of Employment , Education and Training. Godfrey, K. (2010). Understanding education. International Journal of Advanced Education , 12-14. Marich, G. (2010, September 15). NT Govt defends bilingual education policy. Retrieved May 22, 2011, from ABC News: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/15/3012315.htm Wilson, J. (2009). Modern education Theories. Amsterdam: Elsever Publishers Read More