Recently I worked on a group project for my Instructional Methods course in which we were in charge of creating an instruction session for a group of students. We had complete control over who our audience (or students) would be, what we should teach them that would be relevant to their needs, and how we should present the information so that it had the greatest impact.
The first step was figuring out what and to whom we should teach. Knowing that most health related information is online and that adults over the age of 60 typically lack the knowledge needed to be able to find, evaluate, and use this information, we came up with the idea that we should create a 30 minute, face-to-face instruction session that would be aimed at showing seniors how to access health information online.
We knew that a face-to-face session would be best as some older adults may need help learning how to first navigate to a website. An online tutorial may be confusing for older adults who do not know how to use a mouse or type a URL into the address bar of a web browser. To assist us in our classroom, we chose a simple PowerPoint presentation as it would be easier to read for those who have poor eyesight. While Prezi would have made the presentation more attractive to us, it has too much movement and may be too "busy" and confusing for seniors to look at. We kept the concepts simple and focused on how to find information in only one health-related website, the National Institutes of Health Senior Health website. We demonstrated how to adjust the font and contrast so that information can be seen better with aging eyes. Finally, we showed them how to look up information on various maladies in both text and video formats and where to find help if they did not find the information they needed. Our goal was to ensure that older adults left the instruction session with the confidence to be able to independently search for relevant health information from their own computer.
Active learning exercises were scattered throughout the instruction session to ensure that seniors got to practice searching on their own while instructors roved the classroom to assist where needed. Each participant will leave the session with a certificate of achievement as well as a coupon for additional instruction sessions. Most importantly, each individual leaves the classroom with a newly acquired sense of independence knowing that they no longer have to rely on others for access to health-related information because now they possess the skills needed to find relevant information on their own!
This project had its successes and challenges along the way. The biggest challenge was finding a time when my classmates and I could meet. It sounds simple enough, but when one group member lives in Japan, another in Florida, and others in various states throughout the country, it becomes difficult to select a time when we all can meet. Often, there would be one or two of us that could not make it to the meeting so it was essential for someone to take notes and send an email out to the group with all of the topics that were discussed. I was fortunate enough to work with classmates who were just as passionate about presenting quality instruction as I am. It wasn't so much about getting a good grade. Instead, we really put a lot of thought into how we can present the information in a way that would accommodate older learners have a positive impact and in our community. Overall, we succeeded in being able to work together over space and time to present quality instruction with a purpose!
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