OTAN News
Adult Learner Variability Network
When working with any person, especially adults, an educator must first understand what impacts our students for them to fully engage in school. While we may empathize with obstacles which impact our students, we may not know how to strategically support them...until ALVN. The Adult Learner Variability Network (ALVN) offers classroom strategies, research and resources for particular Adult Learner Factors.
For example, this model is categorized into four factors. They are Learner Background, Social and Emotional Learning, Cognition, and Adult Literacies. Beneath each factor are specific descriptors.
An educator can hover over a particular factor like Hearing beneath the Learner Background Category. When your cursor hovers over the factor, the other related connected factors remain.
When I click on the Hearing factor, ALVN takes me to a page which describes the factor, main ideas around it and other factor connections.
Scrolling beneath the Factor Connections, Description and Main Ideas of each factor are Research-Based Strategies to think and incorporate into your lesson for this learner. For this factor there are many strategies to consider and further peruse.
To continue with the hearing example, I clicked on the Cultural & Life Experiences Connections and then the page immediately opened to an Overview, Learning Environment, Additional Resources, Supporting Factors & Related Strategies. Some of these may or may not be useful or may reiterate something you may already realize. However, there’s a huge chance that you may learn something which can really help.
Scrolling lower beneath the Connection, the Additional Resources lists additional examples, professional development ideas and videos and research.
Like many digital tools today, I wish I had access to this years ago when there wasn’t a lot of information about factors which impact people. This tool empowers us to filter the information for use and to support our students.
OTAN Video Resource