Unit 2: Assessing Learner Needs

What are Learner Needs?

One of the first tasks a tutor should do is discover, validate, and classify the learning needs of his or her students. The needs of a learner represent the gap between what the learner wants to get out of the learning experience and his or her current state of knowledge, skill, and enthusiasm (Noessel, 2003). The graph shows potential learning needs in three different domains: cognitive, affective, and psychomotor. When a tutor starts a tutoring session with a new student, it is important that he or she assess preparedness of a student based on the three domains.

Why Identify Learner Needs?

Each learner is unique, and brings to the a tutoring session his or her own different learning style, knowledge set, pool of past experiences, and motivation. In learner-centered tutoring, it is important for tutors to consider the level of knowledge and skill development attained by the learners. While it is ideal to know what the learners needs are beforehand (Dick, Carey, & Carey, 2004), tutors may not always know the needs of the learners until the tutoring session begins. The best way to get identify learner needs is by asking the students themselves. If a learner cannot verbalize his or her needs, during a tutoring session, a tutor can utilize different assessment measures to identify learner needs. Tutors can then use this knowledge throughout the rest of the semester to customize tutoring strategies to enable students to reach their desired educational objectives.