Instructional Strategies

Finally, instructional planning for incarcerated youth and adults is pivotal to the learning process and is no different philosophically than in any other education program. According to Bruner, instruction is an effort to assist in shaping growth (1966). In practice, there are certainly limitations in a corrections setting as you provide instruction. Nonetheless, the first thing you need to know is the learners’ goals and motivations. Why did they choose to come to your program? They didn’t have to! What are their expectations? What goals do they want to achieve in the short time they are with you? What are their unspoken goals? Expectations? Fears? Prior experiences? Through this period, it is critical that you don’t project your own goals, expectations, and values on this process. For example, you might believe that everyone’s life is richer if they can read and write. It is equally compelling, however, that someone who has spent a lifetime not reading or writing and “getting along” may not recognize this value. Reading, writing, and other skills only have value as goals when learners concur. On the other hand, it is certainly reasonable to ask how basic skills might offer your students other alternatives which provide for a better quality of life than they currently have in the correctional facility. These alternatives might also keep the student from becoming caught up in the cycle of recidivism which occurs so often.

In addition to knowing the learners’ goals and motivations, you must be cognizant of what the learner already knows, believes, and values. These prior knowledges will be the foundation upon which you build instruction. The extensiveness of any assessment varies, of course, with the goals and needs of the learners and the time they will be in your program. Regardless, there are some principles which apply:

1. Sixty percent of learners who choose to leave adult education programs leave within the first six hours. Even if your students don’t physically leave, they may leave, mentally. What happens or what does not happen during that six hours must, in some way, contribute to the exit. Formalized assessment during this period flies in the face of what is known!
2. Students who have failed within the traditional elementary and secondary educational system view testing as the outward and visible sign of their failures.
3. Incarcerated youth and adults need to feel that they are in a safe, accepting environment: one in which they are respected. This is particularly challenging in a corrections setting. Formalized assessment or testing does not usually communicate safety. However, you may rearrange intake activities to make the experience less stressful.
4. As a creative educator, you can devise ways of assessment which are effective and nurturing, and give value to what learners know about life.

Once you are aware of the learners’ goals and what they already know, it is now time to collaborate with the learners in moving to the third step, which is selecting the objectives or outcomes. Now comes the artistry: planning instructional activities together to achieve the objectives. These activities are built from the learners’ daily lives, interests, and even crises—perhaps even the incarceration and the events leading up to it.

Instructional planning requires attention to a number of factors. The first of these factors is determining the learner’s preferred style. There are a number of models addressing learning styles. One useful model incorporates five major learning modalities: visual, auditory, kinesthetic, print–oriented, and group–interactive (Kline, 1988). According to Kline, some characteristics of each modality are:

• Visual learners like ideas presented in pictures or diagrams. When they hear things, they translate into visual images. Even their figures of speech are visual. They learn by watching and sometimes even doodling.
• Auditory learners like to listen, or to have things explained. They hear your ideas easily and like the sounds of the words. The sounds contain a rich variety of meanings to them.
• Kinesthetic learners need to move their bodies, to feel action before they understand. They express themselves through such motions as gesture, dance, and mime. They are often physically well–coordinated and do well in sports.
• Print–oriented learners love to read and store ideas from print easily. They prefer books to movies and would rather read than be told something. They easily remember what they read and can verbalize, either repeating it back or writing about it.
• Group–interactive learners are most efficient in discussions or other activities that require working with others. Often social beings, they like to exchange ideas and understand things better after experiencing them as part of a group process.

Since your time is short, you won’t want to spend a lot of time on learning style. On the other hand, if the time for learning is not efficient because the appropriate learning styles are not utilized, time is wasted anyway. By asking learners leading questions based on the above, you can gather information on learning styles. Remember, less than 20 percent of all learners learn effectively through auditory means. Handout G of Sample Lesson 5 features an inventory to help determine learning style.