Blended Learning – A whole college approach

Peter Kilcoyne – ILT Directorpkilcoyne@howcollege.ac.uk

Why Blended Learning?Our reasons to start• Make use of engaging learning

opportunities offered through technology

• Develop independent learning and digital literacy skills

• Maintaining range of study programmes in challenging funding environment

Why Blended Learning?Impact at HOW College• Improvements in learner

success rates (12% in four years)• Improvements in learner

independent learning skills Increased flexibility

• Increased geographical reach, especially on HE provision

Overview - Key Features of SOLA

• FT Level 2, 30 hours per year, FT L3, 60 hours per year• Moodle course• Clear instructions and structure• Learning outcomes• Range of learning resources, text, interactive and video.

Where possible save time by using what’s already out there (e.g. NLN, YouTube, slideshare, Open Educational Resources, everything out there on the www)

• Learning activities through Moodle tools (e.g. forums. glossaries, journals, databases etc)

• Assessment through Moodle tools (quiz and assignment)

Roles– The Whole College Plus Approach • SMT and Governors – strategic lead and drive from the top• SOLA Coordinator – lead SOLA in the course team• Blended Learning Advisors (part of ILT team) – Provide CPD, support lecturers

in developing SOLA. monitoring, SOLA observations , QA• Lecturers – plan content with coordinator, build SOLA with SOLA Team• Learners – doing the SOLA and feeding back on ways to improve• Personal tutors and PLCs – monitor engagement and follow up in individual and

group tutorials• Learning Centre staff –support SOLA in Learning Centres• CRQ (Curriculum) Managers and Leaders – lead and monitor implementation

within their teams• Quality – support with development of quality framework and improvement• IT and Estates – Co-designing and maintaining virtual and physical infrastructures

for blended learning• Partners Colleges – Sharing best practice and co-development

See for yourselfhttp://showcase.howcollege.ac.uk/

Why a consortium?• Problems with free content –

usually not exactly what you want• Commercial content can be

expensive and restrictive• Developing high quality content

too expensive for individual colleges

• Benefits of sharing costs• Developing capacity• “For the sector by the sector”

Blended Learning ConsortiumHow it works

• Led by HOW College with democratic decision making on what content is developed

• Annual membership fee of £5K• Members propose and vote on content to be

developed• Staff in member colleges paid to write and

develop content. Involvement in this is optional• Sharing existing quality content with other

members

Voting Consultation

Curriculum writing Editing E-learning

productionQA & user

testing

Development process

Blc-fe.org

Progress to date

• 63 Colleges have joined. This is approx. 25% of all UK GFE Colleges

• More joining every week• Three rounds of content development underway.

Making up over 750 hours. • Existing college content to be shared includes

Construction, Tutorial, Maths, English, Psychology and SOLA courses

Blended Learning Consortium – current members

and some more…

64 colleges and counting…

First round of development• Digital Literacy L2• Employability L2• Employability L3• English L2• Engineering L2• Engineering L3• Health and Safety in

Social Care L2

Second round of development• British Values Prevent• Health and Social Care L3• Business Studies L3• Sports L2• Sports L3• E-safety – Anti Bullying• Beauty L3• Travel and Tourism L2• Enterprise L2

Third Round of Development• Study Skills• Public Services L2• Hair and Beauty L2• Travel and Tourism L3• Early Years Childcare L3• Interview Preparation• Maths Contextualised for Vocational Areas• Hospitality and Catering (L2)• Hospitality and Catering (L3)• Health and Care (L2)

What kind of content is being built and shared

Examples• Construction• English L2• Digital Literacy• Engineering L2• Health and Social Care L2

Sharing existing content

• Maths• English• Construction• Governance• Plus SOLA Courses

The power of the consortiumDigital Economics or buns vs bytes

• Each College getting £320K plus of content development for £5K

• Leveraged efficiency saving of £315K per College

• £315K x 64 makes £20.1 million efficiency saving across the consortium colleges

The power of a consortiumDigital Economics or buns vs bytes

• Does not include resources being shared by member colleges (presently over 200 hours)

• Does not include resources developed through sponsorship

• Cost of one hour of online learning resource less than £7 per college

• Resources that can be reused over several years

The power of a consortium• 40% off Cengage e-books and textbooks

for members• 70% off Articulate Storyline for members• 25% off Skills2Learn resources• 20% off ALT Membership and CMALT• 20% off lumici state learning platform• Sponsorship from City and Guilds• Other negotiations in the pipeline

Future Plans

• Continued growth of FE Consortium• Sixth Form Colleges Consortium• ACL Consortium• Professional Development Consortium• HE Consortium• US Consortium

Blended learning support from HOW College

• SMT workshop• Curriculum Managers workshop• Online, blended and F2F training for

lecturers• CPD for Support staff• Bespoke training• Content development

Any Questions?

pkilcoyne@howcollege.ac.uk