Learner Choice
Overview
Intentionally incorporating voice and choice into adult learning experiences is critical for making learning meaningful and relevant. When learners are able to choose how they demonstrate their learning, drive their own learning, and self-assess their work against a set of criteria, they are engaged in deeper thinking, have more intrinsic Motivation to learn, and build the Learner Mindset necessary for lifelong learning.
Use It In Your Learning Environment
When instructors see themselves as facilitators of learning, they can provide options for learners to support their decision-making and autonomy. Offering choice in reading material, sequence of activities, research projects, group members, ways to demonstrate mastery, and ways to justify a response are all ways to embed more learner-driven learning and foster Metacognition. Instructors can also offer more autonomy support to learners by listening to the learners, allowing them to engage with the instructional materials, asking about learner needs, responding to learner-generated questions, using perspective-taking statements to show empathy, offering less directives and direct solutions, and intentionally promoting intrinsic Motivation. Ways to promote Motivation could include encouraging learner initiative, nurturing competence, and providing all the information necessary to allow learners to make effective choices.
Products can offer learners choice from an array of activities as well as personalization options within the interface. When they are able to take charge of aspects of their digital learning experiences, students are more likely to sustain Attention on the tasks and, over time, learn the value of making choices that are optimally challenging.
Additional Resources
Additional examples, research, and professional development. These resources are possible representations of this strategy, not endorsements.
Factors Supported by this Strategy
More Instructional Approaches Strategies
When adults can connect and communicate with authentic audiences about their interests and values, learning becomes more personally meaningful and relevant.
When designing instruction for adults, expectations and goals should be clearly outlined to help learners focus on the material and make plans for success.
Competency-based learning is self-paced, focused on mastery, and centered around demonstrating learning outcomes and skills rather than where or how they were attained.
In an increasingly digital world, adults who struggle with using technology can benefit from direct instruction for an array of digital tools.
Teaching learners how to effectively search the internet is critical for helping them learn how to find accurate and relevant information and aids in developing information literacy.
Direct instruction in math strategies may support some adult learners once conceptual understanding is in place.
Research shows that, along with traditional reading comprehension strategies, learners use unique strategies to read the non-linear, hyperlinked structure of online texts.
Adult learners who are struggling with Foundational Reading Skills, including decoding and phonemic awareness, can benefit from explicitly learning phonics skills in an educational setting.
Seeing and using new words repeatedly and across contexts is critical for vocabulary acquisition.
Formative assessment is "assessment for learning" rather than "assessment of learning".
Opportunities for students to practice skills in context, with instructor support and also independently, helps to move concepts and ideas into Long-term Memory.
Metaphors and analogies can support learners by helping to form connections and to notice patterns and similarities that promote learning, self-concept, and higher order thinking.
Mindfulness is a practice to create internal balance and a sense of being present in the moment.
Instruction and training presented in multiple formats allows learners to activate different cognitive skills and Background Knowledge that are necessary to remember procedural and content information.
Using multiple methods of assessment can help educators gain a comprehensive understanding of learner progress across a wide range of skills and content.
When instructors ask questions or have learners create questions before introducing a text, they activate interest, increase Motivation, and help them assess what they already know about a given topic.
Process-based writing focuses on how learners brainstorm, outline, draft, and revise their writing and is most effective when paired with feedback, especially for English language learners.
When instructors are able to provide context, and connect math concepts to an adult learner's world, math can be seen as relevant and applicable to their daily lives and work- a core aspect of adult Numeracy.
Learning and studying information across multiple sessions that are spaced, or distributed in time, can promote learning and long-term retention of both basic and conceptually complex facts and concepts.
A strengths-based approach is one where educators intentionally identify, communicate, and harness learners' assets to empower them to flourish.
