Building learner confidence
When you are working with distant learners or apprentices you can use self-assessment quizzes to learn more about your learner cohort, and for them to gain an understanding of their existing knowledge. When you are working alongside apprentices in your workplace, you can simply have a conversation with them.
When working with learners who do not attend formal classroom like apprentices, they will not have had an opportunity to be a part of a class discussion. Providing them with a safe space to share their knowledge encourages collaborative behaviour. You might like to have an informal forum where they can share socially as well as structured topic forums that allow for idea sharing. It is also important to encourage reflective practice. At the conclusion of a topic or after the learner has completed a task, provide them with an opportunity to reflect. They should identify what happened, how it made them feel, what was good or bad, what they could have done differently, and if they were to complete that task again, what would they change. This can be quite private, and you should allow the learner to decide if they would like to share this information.
The activities that you will design will allow you to gather information as you go. It is important that you ask questions to review their understanding. You can do this either directly with your learner, or you might like to use an online survey to request information. Use this information to help yourself to provide quality feedback and to adjust your resources and activities to provide supplementary content if you believe it is required.
