I attended the ‘Assessment Tomorrow’ conference a couple of weeks ago, and there were some interesting aspects of e assessment highlighted by speakers. Norman Emerson presented an update on the SQA NAR (National Assessment Resource), which is intended to be an online resource for practitioners to support the implementation of CfE. A lot of the materials are currently more geared for colleagues in schools, but there will be more developed materials soon to support other programmes such as NQs. His presentation is included in this entry.
There was an interesting and positive presentation given on the use of e portfolios as a mode of assessment by Maxine Garson from Highland Education Authority. Maxine is employed as a School Liaison Officer on Skills for Work programmes, and has been developing the use of e portfolios to overcome some of the geographical challenges associated with course delivery across the region, and has recently extended this to the practice of e verification.
Matt Wingfield’s presentation featured a briefing on a small pilot that is being carried out in partnership with SQA on the use of ‘Comparative Pairs’ as a way of assessing a range of diverse pieces of evidence and avoiding subjectivity. His organisation (TAG Developments) has devised an algorithm which can help assessors rank/grade a group of students’ work. With reference to the CfE’s emphasis on encouraging more and more diverse ways for learners to present work for assessment, Matt had some good ideas for consideration. There is a web address for more information about the pilot study in his presentation, included here.
There were other interesting and innovative ideas for the future such as the use of an electronic marking tool (Red Pen Tool), the use of mobile phone technology related to assessment of language learning, as well as many examples of online assessments from preschool up to upper secondary.
You can access the presentations in the S Drive -
S:/LandT/Public/Assessment tomorrow.
Jenni Moreland
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
FERA Conference, October, London
Feedback from FERA Conference, Friday 22nd October
Engaging 16-19 year-olds in Learning: Carrot or Stick?
Participation, Retention and Achievement
This was an interesting conference raising several issues that we could consider in relation to CfE, MCMC and learner engagement. Although the conference was primarily focused on provision in England and Wales, some of the issues were pertinent to Scotland, and there was also discussion relating to recent MCMC research findings in Scotland.
I’ve tried to summarise the main ideas presented, but can give further information to anyone interested.
1. Geoff Hayward, Director of Research at the Department of Education, University of Oxford and Director of the Nuffield 14-19 Review.
• More young people are being attracted into further education, and are staying in the system for longer. However, there is statistical evidence that young people are migrating from employment to education (those previously who would have been employed are now in education). This could be seen as structural youth unemployment, and the we need to consider whether we are really helping young people into the labour market.
• Too often young people leave education to go into low paid, temporary employment, or unemployment and come back to college to gain another qualification at the same level that they previously acquired.
• Arguably we are stockpiling qualifications , against other countries – qualifications that are not actually needed for the labour market. “Qualifications become increasingly self-referential inside an education system that fails to engage with the reality of the labour market, which surprisingly places little value on most vocational qualifications currently offered in FE colleges.”
• Do these qualifications actually make us more innovative, creative, raise the GDP – arguably no. Very weak evidence that qualifications leads to jobs, unless you need that qualification to register for a particular job.
• ‘In search of the elusive quarry’ – employability and generic skills, or the ‘Unbearable lightness of skills’. Attempting to define a skills set is a fool’s errand and a waste of money – over past 30 years there have been 5 policy changes trying to define skills needed, but skills need to contextualized and cannot successfully be taught in isolation.
• Argues for more school based vocational system similar to Austria’s.
• Stop putting up with qualification pathways that don’t lead anywhere.
• Help young people develop to be innovative and creative – develop businesses.
2. Gary Warke, Deputy Chief Executive of Hull College Group, one of the largest FE colleges in England. Outlined strategies used to engage and sustain young people in college.
• Offer discovery ½ days/full days for pupils at age 13/14, parents and school staff. Raises the awareness of college potential and helps develop partnership working with schools.
• Developing a range of apprenticeships with local employers.
• Provide alternative learning provisions using collaboration with school, college and other learning providers.
• Very clear pathways with qualifications: entry to degree.
• Constant curriculum review to make sure this reflects labour market opportunities.
• Guidance and support crucial. Contacts need to be made and sustained with schools early on. A great deal of pastoral care was given in guidance tutoring.
• Innovation in learning and teaching – have in place learning coaches for lecturers and learning mentors for young people.
• Core skill are integrated into all subjects.
• Developed a teaching award for those teaching young people – awarded by Edexel, as the it was recognised that additional knowledge and skills were needed.
• E-learning co-ordinator employed in each faculty to help embed technology in the curriculum and to keep staff up-to-date with innovations in technology.
3. Dr. Ian Finlay, Independent Researcher, Young people on the margins: in need of more choices and more chances in twenty-first century Scotland.
Dr Finlay was discussing his recently published paper (British Educational research Journal, October 2010). The aim of the study was to find out more about the lives of young people catagorised as NEET. The research team worked with 26 young people in small groups, and engaged with them using a variety of creative and artistic activities designed to help them construct accounts of their lives. Three significant issues emerged from their lives stories:
• The problematic nature of the discourse of NEET, and why Scotland had changed to MCMC;
• The challenges of school-exclusion policies and practices and;
• The myth of low aspirations. Young people have the same aspirations as other people but their expectations are lower.
• There needs to be more opportunities that are tailored to meet individual needs, and more choices in terms of the range of provision available – often in a non-formal or voluntary sector. “Youth workers and advisors in these sectors seem to be able to develop the kind of close, supportive relationships with young people that are difficult to develop in secondary schools because of the structures and numbers involved.”
• Argues for family size scale of provision – difficult to provide in schools and colleges.
I have the research paper if anyone is interested in reading it.
For further information contact me: Karen.lawson@scotcol.ac.uk
Engaging 16-19 year-olds in Learning: Carrot or Stick?
Participation, Retention and Achievement
This was an interesting conference raising several issues that we could consider in relation to CfE, MCMC and learner engagement. Although the conference was primarily focused on provision in England and Wales, some of the issues were pertinent to Scotland, and there was also discussion relating to recent MCMC research findings in Scotland.
I’ve tried to summarise the main ideas presented, but can give further information to anyone interested.
1. Geoff Hayward, Director of Research at the Department of Education, University of Oxford and Director of the Nuffield 14-19 Review.
• More young people are being attracted into further education, and are staying in the system for longer. However, there is statistical evidence that young people are migrating from employment to education (those previously who would have been employed are now in education). This could be seen as structural youth unemployment, and the we need to consider whether we are really helping young people into the labour market.
• Too often young people leave education to go into low paid, temporary employment, or unemployment and come back to college to gain another qualification at the same level that they previously acquired.
• Arguably we are stockpiling qualifications , against other countries – qualifications that are not actually needed for the labour market. “Qualifications become increasingly self-referential inside an education system that fails to engage with the reality of the labour market, which surprisingly places little value on most vocational qualifications currently offered in FE colleges.”
• Do these qualifications actually make us more innovative, creative, raise the GDP – arguably no. Very weak evidence that qualifications leads to jobs, unless you need that qualification to register for a particular job.
• ‘In search of the elusive quarry’ – employability and generic skills, or the ‘Unbearable lightness of skills’. Attempting to define a skills set is a fool’s errand and a waste of money – over past 30 years there have been 5 policy changes trying to define skills needed, but skills need to contextualized and cannot successfully be taught in isolation.
• Argues for more school based vocational system similar to Austria’s.
• Stop putting up with qualification pathways that don’t lead anywhere.
• Help young people develop to be innovative and creative – develop businesses.
2. Gary Warke, Deputy Chief Executive of Hull College Group, one of the largest FE colleges in England. Outlined strategies used to engage and sustain young people in college.
• Offer discovery ½ days/full days for pupils at age 13/14, parents and school staff. Raises the awareness of college potential and helps develop partnership working with schools.
• Developing a range of apprenticeships with local employers.
• Provide alternative learning provisions using collaboration with school, college and other learning providers.
• Very clear pathways with qualifications: entry to degree.
• Constant curriculum review to make sure this reflects labour market opportunities.
• Guidance and support crucial. Contacts need to be made and sustained with schools early on. A great deal of pastoral care was given in guidance tutoring.
• Innovation in learning and teaching – have in place learning coaches for lecturers and learning mentors for young people.
• Core skill are integrated into all subjects.
• Developed a teaching award for those teaching young people – awarded by Edexel, as the it was recognised that additional knowledge and skills were needed.
• E-learning co-ordinator employed in each faculty to help embed technology in the curriculum and to keep staff up-to-date with innovations in technology.
3. Dr. Ian Finlay, Independent Researcher, Young people on the margins: in need of more choices and more chances in twenty-first century Scotland.
Dr Finlay was discussing his recently published paper (British Educational research Journal, October 2010). The aim of the study was to find out more about the lives of young people catagorised as NEET. The research team worked with 26 young people in small groups, and engaged with them using a variety of creative and artistic activities designed to help them construct accounts of their lives. Three significant issues emerged from their lives stories:
• The problematic nature of the discourse of NEET, and why Scotland had changed to MCMC;
• The challenges of school-exclusion policies and practices and;
• The myth of low aspirations. Young people have the same aspirations as other people but their expectations are lower.
• There needs to be more opportunities that are tailored to meet individual needs, and more choices in terms of the range of provision available – often in a non-formal or voluntary sector. “Youth workers and advisors in these sectors seem to be able to develop the kind of close, supportive relationships with young people that are difficult to develop in secondary schools because of the structures and numbers involved.”
• Argues for family size scale of provision – difficult to provide in schools and colleges.
I have the research paper if anyone is interested in reading it.
For further information contact me: Karen.lawson@scotcol.ac.uk
Friday, October 1, 2010
EDDG meetings on the topic of Assessment
This week we had two well attended lunchtime meetings of our EDDG group. Assessment was chosen as our focus partly because the SCE Assessment Policy is currently undergoing review and also to lead us into the Curriculum for Excellence vision of creating an 'Assessment is for Learning' college.
As always, at these meetings the attendees shared examples of good practice such as:
Carole
As always, at these meetings the attendees shared examples of good practice such as:
- Starting a unit by setting a mock summative assessment and allowing the learners to find out how many gaps there are in their knowledge and privately discover how much they need to learn to be successful
- Using quiz type formative testing throughout the course which can be peppered with 'pub quiz' type questions which tend to lighten an otherwise stressful experience
- Using feedback stickys at the end of a lesson to let the lecturer know of gaps and successes in the learning
- Using Quizdom linked to a presentation -this is an electronic voting tool given to the learners that then allows the lecturer to monitor the understanding of their lesson
- Peer assessing and peer reviewing and the 'two stars and a wish' approach where students give feedback to one another about what they've done well and what they might do differently
- Regularly sharing in staff meetings what is happening in the classroom that seems to work well
- Involving students in decisions about how they want to be assessed
- Using regular informal testing at the end of a lesson. This appears to lead to the learners paying greater attention throughout the class
- Using Flip cameras to video group work
- Using D2L and various fora (Blogs, Wikis etc) to feedback to the learners. This creates a platform for further group discussions and collabarative learning
- Students developing assessments for one another can help them to look at a topic from a different perspective
These are some of the techniques that are being used across college and the value of each was discussed. It was agreed that it wasn't always easy to balance the academic content with useful formative assessment and strive to keep our learners engaged along the way.
Also discussed were the problems faced with plagiarism and academic dishonesty and how sanctions can and are being used. Some lecturers draw up a contract with their learners regarding plagiarism at the start of each course. This is explained to each student and they are asked to sign and agree to its content. This approach doesn't always work with individuals but it can be revisited if a student is thought to be contravening it.
It was put forward that students may plagiarise material because they have not been able to, or had the support to develop essay or report writing skills in their already packed curriculum. Help with accessing the correct materials, effectively reading these, taking appropriate notes then personalising and presenting their findings would be very useful especially to those going on to study at University but also as a skill to take through life.
As always the discussions could have continued longer but ended on how important good feedback is in the journey of a learner and what is helpful to allow progression.
Thanks to all who gave up their time to attend.
Carole
Sunday, September 26, 2010
FERRN Autumn Seminar
As no-one from college was available to attend the FERRN seminar I agreed to share some notes from the day.
As always, with FERRN events it was a great day, with a mixture of research, theory and practice. As a FERRN member, Stevenson staff can attend the seminar for free, and I would really encourage you to attend these events in the future.
The focus of this event was 'leaner engagement'. Although there have been plenty of events nationally and locally on leaner engagement, very little attention has been given to the theory and research - what does it all mean?
The first presentation was given by Cathy Walsh, Principal of Barking and Dagenham College. Cathy came over as someone who genuinely wanted to connect with staff and students, and believed in the importance of creating an innovative and creative culture within the college.
She discussed the problems of a 'command and control' approach to leadership in colleges, and the dangers in constantly restructuring. She focused on the importance of fostering excellence, working together, being positive role models and creating a college which was 'good enough for our own'. Often this can be a good bench-mark for evaluation. Is this service, resource, learning and teaching good enough for our own children, family or friends?
Cathy also discussed the current economic climate, and the importance of real work opportunities for students. She gave examples of how students have been involved in designing and promoting aspects of the college, and the ways that links with employers have been developed over the past few years. Of particular interest was the Enterprise Academy that is run by students , who tender for jobs within the college.
Cathy particularly emphasised the importance of the different roles within the college. She discussed the crucial role played by admission and support staff: the people who often make initial contact with learners. The key message being that we won't engage learners if we don't welcome them into the college and make them feel valued.
Similar to other advocates of learner engagement, Cathy was keen to stress that we need to go beyond representation, and really equip tutors, teachers, lecturers with the skills to help learners learn. She discussed the learner engagement team, the coaching system for staff, study support and the personalised learner support service as some of the initiatives which help develop learner confidence and skills. One of the key developments for tutors has been training in motivational dialogues: identifying goals and risks, exploring ambivalence, setting targets, and maintaining behavioural change.
When asked about managing change with staff, Cathy talked about the need to be open and transparent. She felt it was essential to be engage in dialogue with staff about the issues that were of concern, and to involve staff in creating solutions. She did admit that there were times when staff did not like what she had to say, but respected her honesty. She felt it was important for senior staff to be visible within the college, and ensured that during the induction period senior staff were around , visiting the canteen, talking to students and generally there to welcome students.
Cathy's presentation was followed by Anne Gillen, Research Manager at Adam Smith College, who gave some feedback on the research Holding Up The Mirror: behaviours that impede good tutor-student relations. This was the outcome of a study completed by five Scottish colleges, including Stevenson.
The research findings were really interesting and gave rise to quite a debate. I think we: Stevenson, Scotland's Colleges and FERRN need to give some consideration to how we can best use the information, but I've no doubt that both staff and students will be interested in each others' perceptions. I'll give out the completed findings at an EDDG meeting and also to Carole for further dissemination, but for now here's some to ponder:
Learner Perception of Tutor Behaviour - Irritating Behaviours
1. Talks too much/too long
2. Assumes we already know things we don't know
3. Treats students differently (has favourites/picks on individuals)
4. Is patronising or condescending
5. Doesn't give clear information about course/unit requirements
Tutor Perceptions of Learner Behaviour - Irritating Behaviours
1. Has poor or irregular attendance
2. Expects to gain unit without putting effort into developing skills/knowledge
3. Disrupts teaching (e.g. chatting/laughing)
4. Is rude or disrespectful towards me or fellow students
5. Comes unprepared to class (e.g. without pen/folder/kit)
The research also covered helpful behaviours, which we can focus on at a later date...
The morning was drawn to a close by Professor Terry Mayes, who was examining the theoretical underpinnings of learner engagement. He explored the difference between learner engagement (the willingness to enter into a joint enterprise) and learner empowerment (the capacity and skills to take advantage of engagement).
Professor Mayes critically examined different models of learning, seeing this as key to learner engagement. In particular he examined learning cycles (of which there are many), drawing attention to cognitive, associative and situative perspectives. Interestingly he discussed the painfulness of learning, and our tendency as teachers to forget what it is like to learn something new: the affect gap. He drew our attention to the work of Vygotsky, Wenger and Michelene Chi who is currently doing a lot of work around tutoring. Her findings will be of little to surprise to those working in FE: learners learn best from observing other learners learn; tutors need to scaffold learning; tutors need to go in at the right level ; need to develop communities of practice which encourage peer learning, peer tutoring and peer assessment.
As always, with FERRN events it was a great day, with a mixture of research, theory and practice. As a FERRN member, Stevenson staff can attend the seminar for free, and I would really encourage you to attend these events in the future.
The focus of this event was 'leaner engagement'. Although there have been plenty of events nationally and locally on leaner engagement, very little attention has been given to the theory and research - what does it all mean?
The first presentation was given by Cathy Walsh, Principal of Barking and Dagenham College. Cathy came over as someone who genuinely wanted to connect with staff and students, and believed in the importance of creating an innovative and creative culture within the college.
She discussed the problems of a 'command and control' approach to leadership in colleges, and the dangers in constantly restructuring. She focused on the importance of fostering excellence, working together, being positive role models and creating a college which was 'good enough for our own'. Often this can be a good bench-mark for evaluation. Is this service, resource, learning and teaching good enough for our own children, family or friends?
Cathy also discussed the current economic climate, and the importance of real work opportunities for students. She gave examples of how students have been involved in designing and promoting aspects of the college, and the ways that links with employers have been developed over the past few years. Of particular interest was the Enterprise Academy that is run by students , who tender for jobs within the college.
Cathy particularly emphasised the importance of the different roles within the college. She discussed the crucial role played by admission and support staff: the people who often make initial contact with learners. The key message being that we won't engage learners if we don't welcome them into the college and make them feel valued.
Similar to other advocates of learner engagement, Cathy was keen to stress that we need to go beyond representation, and really equip tutors, teachers, lecturers with the skills to help learners learn. She discussed the learner engagement team, the coaching system for staff, study support and the personalised learner support service as some of the initiatives which help develop learner confidence and skills. One of the key developments for tutors has been training in motivational dialogues: identifying goals and risks, exploring ambivalence, setting targets, and maintaining behavioural change.
When asked about managing change with staff, Cathy talked about the need to be open and transparent. She felt it was essential to be engage in dialogue with staff about the issues that were of concern, and to involve staff in creating solutions. She did admit that there were times when staff did not like what she had to say, but respected her honesty. She felt it was important for senior staff to be visible within the college, and ensured that during the induction period senior staff were around , visiting the canteen, talking to students and generally there to welcome students.
Cathy's presentation was followed by Anne Gillen, Research Manager at Adam Smith College, who gave some feedback on the research Holding Up The Mirror: behaviours that impede good tutor-student relations. This was the outcome of a study completed by five Scottish colleges, including Stevenson.
The research findings were really interesting and gave rise to quite a debate. I think we: Stevenson, Scotland's Colleges and FERRN need to give some consideration to how we can best use the information, but I've no doubt that both staff and students will be interested in each others' perceptions. I'll give out the completed findings at an EDDG meeting and also to Carole for further dissemination, but for now here's some to ponder:
Learner Perception of Tutor Behaviour - Irritating Behaviours
1. Talks too much/too long
2. Assumes we already know things we don't know
3. Treats students differently (has favourites/picks on individuals)
4. Is patronising or condescending
5. Doesn't give clear information about course/unit requirements
Tutor Perceptions of Learner Behaviour - Irritating Behaviours
1. Has poor or irregular attendance
2. Expects to gain unit without putting effort into developing skills/knowledge
3. Disrupts teaching (e.g. chatting/laughing)
4. Is rude or disrespectful towards me or fellow students
5. Comes unprepared to class (e.g. without pen/folder/kit)
The research also covered helpful behaviours, which we can focus on at a later date...
The morning was drawn to a close by Professor Terry Mayes, who was examining the theoretical underpinnings of learner engagement. He explored the difference between learner engagement (the willingness to enter into a joint enterprise) and learner empowerment (the capacity and skills to take advantage of engagement).
Professor Mayes critically examined different models of learning, seeing this as key to learner engagement. In particular he examined learning cycles (of which there are many), drawing attention to cognitive, associative and situative perspectives. Interestingly he discussed the painfulness of learning, and our tendency as teachers to forget what it is like to learn something new: the affect gap. He drew our attention to the work of Vygotsky, Wenger and Michelene Chi who is currently doing a lot of work around tutoring. Her findings will be of little to surprise to those working in FE: learners learn best from observing other learners learn; tutors need to scaffold learning; tutors need to go in at the right level ; need to develop communities of practice which encourage peer learning, peer tutoring and peer assessment.
Some strategies identified for promoting learner engagement included giving more control over the learning through project and resource based work and the use of discussion. Professor Mayes also discussed developing communities of practice, focusing on tasks, formative assessment and giving frequent feedback. He emphasised the personalisation of learning and teaching, through content being downplayed, except where the content has been created by learners. Again, I don't think there are any surprises here, but it's good to know this is in keeping with CfE and the topics we have discussed in previous EDDG meetings.
Further useful websites mentioned were http://www.reap.ac.uk/ and http://www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk/
Please get in touch if you want to know more about the FERRN seminar and I look forward to seeing you at the next EDDG meeting.
Karen
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Science Festival
Hi Folks
Aileen Duffy from Scotland's Colleges recommended this festival: http://www.southwestconferences.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Science-and-pseudoscience-2010-flyer.pdf.
She went last year, with a couple of psychology students and said it was excellent. Perhaps a couple of students could go and give a presentation to the class, or groups of interested students. I think it's a good way we can broaden and deepen students' learning in a meaningful and interesting way.
Let me know what you think, and better still if anyone goes, write something for the blog.
Karen
Aileen Duffy from Scotland's Colleges recommended this festival: http://www.southwestconferences.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Science-and-pseudoscience-2010-flyer.pdf.
She went last year, with a couple of psychology students and said it was excellent. Perhaps a couple of students could go and give a presentation to the class, or groups of interested students. I think it's a good way we can broaden and deepen students' learning in a meaningful and interesting way.
Let me know what you think, and better still if anyone goes, write something for the blog.
Karen
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Don't miss the FERRN autumn seminar, 24 September 2010
Venue: WEST LOTHIAN COLLEGE, ALMONDVALE CRESCENT, LIVINGSTON, EH54 7EP
Theme: Learner engagement
Agenda
09:30 Coffee & Registration
09:50 Introduction & Welcome
10:00 Learner Engagement in Barking and Dagenham College: what we have learned
Cathy Walsh, Principal, Barking and Dagenham College
11:00 Coffee
11:15 Holding up the Mirror: behaviours that impede good tutor-student relationships.
Outcomes of a study involving five Scottish colleges
Anne Gillen, Research Manager, Adam Smith College
12:00 Lunch
12:50 Learner Engagement: theoretical underpinnings
Speaker to be confirmed
13:30 Workshop 1: sparqs presenter
This highly participative and reflective workshop will explore various definitions, outcomes and tools of student engagement in quality. It will allow participants to consider individual, college and sector-level practice in student engagement and identify potential research areas.
or
Workshop 2: Karen Lawson, Scotland’s Colleges
Anne Gillen, Adam Smith College
In this workshop, we will share some of the new approaches we have tried to help learners make their voices heard. We hope you will share yours too.
14:30 Workshops 1 and 2 will be repeated, giving delegates an opportunity to attend both.
15:30 Close
For more information or to register your
place please email: leahchristie@adamsmith.ac.uk
or phone 01592 223845
Theme: Learner engagement
Agenda
09:30 Coffee & Registration
09:50 Introduction & Welcome
10:00 Learner Engagement in Barking and Dagenham College: what we have learned
Cathy Walsh, Principal, Barking and Dagenham College
11:00 Coffee
11:15 Holding up the Mirror: behaviours that impede good tutor-student relationships.
Outcomes of a study involving five Scottish colleges
Anne Gillen, Research Manager, Adam Smith College
12:00 Lunch
12:50 Learner Engagement: theoretical underpinnings
Speaker to be confirmed
13:30 Workshop 1: sparqs presenter
This highly participative and reflective workshop will explore various definitions, outcomes and tools of student engagement in quality. It will allow participants to consider individual, college and sector-level practice in student engagement and identify potential research areas.
or
Workshop 2: Karen Lawson, Scotland’s Colleges
Anne Gillen, Adam Smith College
In this workshop, we will share some of the new approaches we have tried to help learners make their voices heard. We hope you will share yours too.
14:30 Workshops 1 and 2 will be repeated, giving delegates an opportunity to attend both.
15:30 Close
For more information or to register your
place please email: leahchristie@adamsmith.ac.uk
or phone 01592 223845
Friday, June 18, 2010
Project-based learning and unit integration
In the last edition of Illuminating Practice (Issue 06 – June 2010), Colin Thomson, a computing lecturer from the Creative Industries faculty, wrote a very interesting piece on the development work that he has been doing on a HN course to create a project-based learning experience for students which also integrates the content of two units.
Just to remind folk, the objectives of Colin’s development work with these units were:
- to make the combined units project-based
- to make the project very hands-on encourage skill of hand
- to encourage the students to do research
- to develop skills for analysing information and synthesising solutions
- to place the emphasis on the students learning rather than on the teaching
- to use real hardware rather than a virtual environment because real-world networks are made up from real computers not virtual computers.
- to make the units CfE ready.
What follows is a follow-up to that piece. In this post-script Colin outlines some of the tangible benefits of the approach while still making the crucial point that such developments require a significant commitment in terms of time and hard work.
There is also a link at the end of the piece to a phlog (which I had never even heard of when I came in this morning) which provides more thoughts (in audio) on this …
------------------------------------------
Post-script to article in Illuminating Practice on Microsoft and Unit-Integration by Colin Thomson.
The outcome of unit integration and a project–based approach was that retention and achievement were greatly improved.
It was the case that for a number of the students the approach I used came as a culture shock, but most of them agreed by the end of the course that it was a better way of doing things because they got the hands-on experience and a substantial amount of practice in problem solving and troubleshooting.
They also grudgingly admitted that making them responsible for learning rather than passively sitting at their desks expecting me to pour Information from a PowerPoint into their ears meant that in the end they learnt a lot more. One student in the group who did both units last year the traditional way, failed and repeated them this year, came and told me that he found the way we did it this year a big improvement.
There was a knock-on to the Graded Unit. Because of the experience the students gained from the two integrated units they took to the Graded Unit like ducks to water, which has led to a substantial increase in the overall quality of the Graded Unit this year. This I admit was something I hadn't expected but with the benefit of hindsight makes perfect sense.
Had it not been for the fact that the HNC Networking is being dropped my next step would have been to integrate yet another unit to create a three-module, five-credit Window networking unit that broke down completely the artificial barriers between the Windows networking modules.
The proof of the pud is in the results. We lost a lot of students in the first semester from the August starts due to issues to do with staff sickness and lack of suitable cover, now resolved, so that the haemorrhaging of students from that group stopped. We retained virtually all of the January starts. All of the students that we kept achieved the units. The results from the Graded Unit are also greatly improved and I think all of the students will pass that too. I have a few more to mark.
I regret that I won't have the chance to integrate all three units and to push the process even further forward.
I think that CfE is nothing new, just a return to the way I was taught 50 years ago. Nonetheless it is the way forward and I would recommend the integrated, learner-centred, hands-on approach to anyone with the stamina to take it on, but on the understanding that appropriate support from management was forthcoming.
The phlog that I recorded for Scotland's Colleges is now beginning to attract some interest. It will be interesting to see what comments that brings in.
As a final note don't forget it was Debbie Meharg who first gave me the idea. Had she not done so, it might never have happened
Click here to go to Colin's phlog.
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