Whenever you are creating a course or learning environment,
it is critical to know your audience. First it is important to know what you
want to you audience to accomplish. As
an experience college educator, you already know that if you were to create an
introductory college course you would naturally want a course that enables
students to:
- articulate
general principles of the course topic,
- have a general
idea of the field
- consider the
subject from a variety of perspectives and
- apply an
approach to problem solving employed by professionals in that discipline.
Alternatively, advanced level college courses involve higher levels of abstraction, a more sophisticated understanding of the content, and extensive knowledge of the field. Consequently, knowing what level of knowledge the expected student has and the level of the course expectations gives you great insight as to what your course will need to be successful.
Knowing your audience also entails understanding the
specific needs of our students. This
will allow for courses to target resources to meet students where they need
most help. For example, if you create an
online course and presume that the students all younger and younger people are
digital natives who should not have a problem navigating the LMS, you may be in
for a shock when you discover that 1 in 4 students in your class are over the
age of 25. Further, often low income and
first generation students do not have the same level of computer competence as
their fellow students. This can greatly affect your courses’ design
effectiveness. It is best to know who your audience is and design it inclusively
for the various students who will be attending the class. While you may want to make it easy for those
who are familiar with computers, you may want to remember you also want to
accommodate those who are not.
Overcoming
your perception of students and looking at the reality of your college is
critical for understanding how to best meet your student’s needs. For example, while most people think the
average college student is 20 years old, the average college student is
actually 26 years old. Further, while
more students enrolled in four year colleges (58%) than two year programs (42%), and
half of these students attend full time, community colleges have generally have
a higher level of part-time students than full-time students. Hispanic students are also over-represented in
public two-year colleges while less likely to attend a four year college and
get a bachelor’s degree.
Over all, knowing your courses audience is critical for them
achieving success. As an instructor or
course designer, you don’t want to tacitly accept your intuition about your
students. The more you learn about them,
the better you can accommodate their needs and increase their success.
Ultimately, this contributes to higher retention, high graduation rates, and
more satisfied students and administrators.
Of course, the better teaching reviews that are correlated to better
course design doesn’t hurt either.
