Individual Learning Planning

Adult Literacy and Numeracy (ALN) Curriculum Framework for Scotlandpart2

Part Two: Practice

3.4 Individual Learning Plans

After initial assessment the next stage is to work with a tutor to explore current uses and capabilities, learning styles and learning goals in more depth.  The culmination of this stage is to jointly produce an Individual Learning Plan. The ALNIS report recommends that "Individual Learning Plans should become the standard means of recognising needs and goals and developing learning pathways".

The Individual Learning Plan should outline:

  • the agreed learning goals
  • the steps needed to achieve them
  • how progress towards these will be measured (eg weekly record keeping and agreed assessment instruments, usually based on a real-life situation)
  • the nature of the learning undertaken (eg group, individual and homework; preferred learning style)
  • suggested activities and resources.

Learning plans will vary enormously depending on how specific or wide-ranging the learning goals are, the distance between current capabilities and desired outcomes and the limitations of the learner's own time-scale.

It is important that the learner understands the purpose of the learning plan and that it is used throughout the learning cycle of planning, learning, reflecting, reviewing progress against goals and setting new goals or adapting existing ones.  It is also important that the learner understands the language on the form.

Individual Learning Plans - group discussion

A tutor introduced learning plans to a group of learners starting a new block of work. Three of the learners had worked for three months with the tutor and had already completed learning plans for that period; the other four learners were new to literacies learning.
 
The tutor had drawn on the flipchart a "spider", with the subject "learning plans", and surrounded by questions - What? Why? Who? How? When? She explained that they were going to start the session by thinking about Individual Learning Plans and wanted to find out what they already knew about them. The group considered each question on the spider, and volunteered answers. With very little prompting from the tutor, the group members came up with many of the key points about learning plans (see spider diagram below). In particular they were quite clear about the importance of identifying a learning goal, so that they could look back at the end of the block of learning and check on their progress. The tutor pointed out that she relied on learning plans to keep her focused on what the learners wanted to do.
 
Group work for the next couple of weeks concentrated on discussion of some sections of the learning plan - group and individual goals (which helped learners to look at other possibilities of learning), different methods of learning, the kinds of resources that they might bring with them, and their own and their tutor's responsibilities in the learning and teaching process. Comments and points were recorded on the flipchart, so that when learners completed their plan they could select the words or phrases that were relevant to them.
 
The group also discussed smart goals as a group, but the tutor and volunteer tutor helped them to complete this part of their learning plan, as well as identifying with the learners which methods and resources they would use.
 
During the next two months the tutor repeated the process, using "record keeping" and "evaluation" as the headings for spider diagrams. By the end of the block of learning, the learners had referred several times to their learning plans, and had a clear idea of the cycle of learning - planning, action, recording and evaluation of work done, leading to further planning for the next block of work.

ilps

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