January 27, 2023 • 35 mins
In this episode, we talk to Allan Glen from Edinburgh College and discuss the approach taken in his curriculum area in relation to project based learning. Allan shares his inspiration for reviewing the curriculum offer with his team, which led to a shift in focus across all aspects of the curriculum and significantly reduced the assessment burden on students and staff. Allan shares his advice and approach on all aspects of the process, including some guidance principles as well as considerations relating to quality assurance.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:06):
Hello and welcome to the latest episode
of the Pedagogy Matters Podcast.
The purpose of the podcast is to
bring the foursome key topics of
conversation in relation to relation
to learning and teaching, to discuss,
to break down aspects of practice
and provide snippets of advice and
guidance as to how to integrate
these into our daily practice.
Today I'm delighted to be joined by
Alan Glenn from Edinburgh College.
We'll be discussing project based learning.
(00:28):
Alan, good morning, how are you?
Morning, Johnny. I'm well, thanks.
Thanks very much for asking me to
come in and be on the podcast.
It's a great pleasure,
not fantastic, great to have you.
So I know we've,
we've talked quite a bit in
the last six months or so.
You've delivered a session for us
at Expo and really on the back of
that interest we'll keep the kind
of discuss and explore a little
bit more about book some of the
initiatives that you've done and
(00:49):
really explore those a bit further.
So yeah, let's get straight.
So project based learning.
I guess in your world.
Are you OK to kind of share what you did,
what that means to you and
kind of where that came from?
Yeah, I mean, I think how it came about,
I mean to give a little bit
of the kind of back story.
I have been at Edinburgh
College about 15 years.
I started as the saxophone teacher in the
(01:12):
music department and then obviously I,
as the years developed or
as the years went on, I,
my manager,
realized I had other skills and other
abilities who got me into the classroom
doing a bit of classroom teaching
about five years ago I was made.
A curriculum leader,
but the curriculum leader of sound
production music business which is
a whole other campus moved down.
(01:33):
And then I'm now the curriculum
team manager for that team.
And and it came about from that
initial move from the music department
to the sound production department.
Because you were coming into
a team with an established UM
methods assessment method,
assessment kind of practice
and you were the outsider.
(01:53):
So you could come at it
from quite a dispassionate.
Um, kind of way.
And have a look at things and just you know,
take the goods and the bad and work with the,
you know,
it's the usual thing,
work with the goods and like
change up the bad things.
And the one thing I I noticed was
just the amount of duplication
of assessment and the amount of
(02:15):
tiny little assessments which just
overwhelmed like the learners like
overwhelmed the the, you know,
and I I think that that's something
that in all honesty,
I mean the listeners might be
thinking the same thing.
It's getting worse.
It's easier to overwhelm learners now,
especially off the back of COVID.
(02:35):
Look like it's really interesting
and the kind of point you mentioned
there was you could see that kind of
objectively I guess kind of coming in
fresh into a team and in your race and
kind of reflect on my own practice,
we always did what we always did.
We always taught the same units in
the same order because that was so
and so's units are they like to teach
that first and often there was a,
there was a purpose to that sequencing,
(02:56):
but still those assessments here,
right, they became the focal points
and in some cases there was kind
of that fear of change. Yeah. So.
So yes, so tell us a bit more.
What you did so you can identify the,
the challenge there or the problem is
the volume of assessment and it's too
much and so our micro assessments,
so, So what did you do?
So this kind of came about twofold
(03:16):
as well because the the HND and sound
production was changing frameworks.
The SQA had updated it,
so things needed to change anyway,
which was quite nice because you
took the first hurdle,
potential hurdle out of the equation.
And that you just said like people,
some people just don't like change.
But this was like force that we
were going to have to change.
It was new units,
(03:36):
it was new learning outcomes.
So let's let's do it.
So.
Again,
I I I wanted the the staff to take
complete ownership of assessments of units.
Well not even units because I I
don't we've talked about this before.
I don't really think in terms of units.
I I think if you do think in terms of units
it's fine to me it's part of the problem.
(03:57):
Um, So what I did was.
I took a load of index cards and I
wrote the learning outcomes from the
squas unit descriptors on one side,
and I wrote the units that they
were for on from on the other side.
And then basically I asked the
staff without any real prep.
(04:18):
So don't look at unit specs,
don't look at learning outcome,
don't look at anything for about
2 weeks beforehand.
Arrange those cards into a set
number of piles.
So I think it was about five,
um off outcomes that you think work
or that you think will match up.
Don't turn them over,
don't look at the units just to see it.
(04:38):
And the reason that I went for 5:00
AM is because there was actually
more units than 5 units.
So you're instantly bringing by
putting in that, um, that restriction,
you're instantly bringing down
the assessment burden.
So that that got really kind of
it got them really thinking and
what was quite nice was I I've,
I've said this,
(04:59):
I've I've said this to a few teams when I've,
I've kind of chatted about this is I've
done it the night before and I was actually,
I was in the pub just having
like it was one of those things,
get out of the flat,
get out of you know,
go to the pub and just have a seat.
And I'm sad that way.
I took these cards with me and I sat and
I just did it myself and the team came up
(05:21):
with a completely different set of five.
Than I did, yeah.
Which was great because it wasn't me
trying to force my will on the team,
it was them taking total ownership off.
This is the course,
this is the the, the outcomes.
How are we going to put them into
projects that we think work?
And that's really interesting.
But you can't touched upon earlier
(05:41):
within that description around
the kind of move away from units
to a degree there as well.
I know we've talked in the past,
it's kind of more around kind of
looking more holistic what the program
in terms of whether you use skills,
knowledge,
behaviors are different terminology of
whatever you use in terms of what is
that students actually need to be able to do,
what do they need to be able to
know and sometimes the units,
we don't know whether written
(06:02):
in the way that you saw,
But yeah,
I agree it's kind of really important
for colleagues to yeah to have that.
Time and flexibility to reflect
and as you've just said there,
they came up with a different set
of UH-5 than you did and that's
fine because it's all around
kind of perspective around.
What skills,
notice behaviors or whatever language
people choose to use to focus around?
(06:23):
So you've done that,
you've looked at it, he said.
It's 25 learning outcomes.
You've kind of put them into five piles.
Then what happened?
Really it's then it was,
it was a continual discussion
amongst the staff.
The the usual thing or the thing can be
is that you just then send each staff
member away to do their own thing,
create their own assessments.
But if you do that, I feel, I mean again,
(06:45):
that's all that I'm given is,
is my opinion on what I think
works and what doesn't.
You know,
some people will probably massively disagree
with me and others might be thinking,
you know, it's something worth trying,
but if you let the staff just
go away and do their own thing.
You might as well have just given
them the units in the 1st place,
I think.
This was about how can each
(07:07):
assessment feed into.
The other assessment so it's not
just project based learning,
it's like integrated project based learning.
If you want to give it a name,
so for example.
There's a,
there's a,
there was a project which was based
on post production for video.
So it's the idea of creating sound
effects or um,
(07:27):
dialogue or anything like that
for a piece of video.
It's one of the big trends in the
industry and it's one of the biggest
employers in the industry at the moment.
Well,
instead of getting them to record.
At separately,
there's also a recording project.
So why can't they record the stuff for
that project and the other assessment
(07:48):
and then use it in the next one.
And again, it's what you notice
when you do it like this as well.
You can actually get the
assessments done fairly quickly.
Like you're not taking.
I have this big thing as well.
I was saying we give the academic
teams 36 teaching weeks,
but they and they take that at sometimes
(08:08):
they take that really seriously.
It's like right.
36 weeks to teach.
So they'll go to the absolute bitter end
of and then they'll give the assessment.
I just wanted to get the learners.
We all wanted to get the learners
with the basic understanding,
the basic ability to do the work, to record,
to edit to whatever the outcomes were.
And then once they had the confidence
(08:30):
that they've passed their assessment,
so they're demonstrating a basic
knowledge and understanding.
It was then just more events,
more things are the same,
more real world stuff.
That we could then.
So for recording a lot of our stuff
we would bring bands in or we would go
out into the kind of local community
go out and schools and we take the students,
take a load of equipment
(08:50):
and we would record it.
They're not,
that's not assessed,
but they were ending up putting all this
stuff in their graded units as well.
So it ended ended up becoming assessed
and the confidence that you got
from the learners when they started
seeing them passing their course
early on gave them that kind of
driving determination to kind of keep going.
(09:10):
As opposed to just a lot of learning and
then an assessment which harks back to.
The old school exams, yeah,
no, you're totally right.
And we always talk like, kind of.
We want learners to own their learning
and to kind of lead their learning.
And you kind of you,
you touched upon there in terms of the
real world learning that that that's
(09:31):
the way it kind of our program should be.
Where we can make them especially
for occasional programs is exposure
to real world where we can do that's
a Holy Grail for lots of people.
The difficulty is of well how do I do it?
How do I fit that into my timetable.
There's so many things you've touched upon
there in terms of the 36 week duration.
Well yeah,
one,
yeah but you don't have to teach
well 36 weeks it's around the
(09:52):
curation development skills.
Another bit to kind of consider is
there's a lot of conversation education.
No,
but differentiate differentiations
are normal.
It should be about adaptive teaching,
which kind of really kind of
what you just alluded to there.
Everyone works at their own pace
and if they're going through
and developing their skills,
then if they're ready for assessment,
ready for assessment.
And the final bit,
the most important bit for me is just
(10:14):
because Unit 1 says ricotta develop
skill in Unit 2 and says record,
you shouldn't do that order,
put them together.
You're absolutely right.
You know, it's more holistic,
it's better for students real world
when they're out doing whatever
job they'll put those together.
There's no point.
And segmenting that too much and keep
it totally separate is different things.
It's bringing that together and
students then development skills
(10:35):
and I know you mentioned I'm going
to talk previously actually some
of the projects that you made were
linked with industry and they were
four industry and some people kind
of got selected as that, right?
That's right.
I mean we we've done um,
we have a lot of kind of good
industry partners and you know they
were using their projects as almost
like showreels or interview prep
or whatever so that they could get
(10:57):
selected for external projects by the
industry partners which is something
that we cannot simulate and college
or no one can simulate in college.
The one,
the big thing about the real
world situation that I always
talk about and especially I mean
coming from any industry but
particularly creative industries
and music and sound production is.
You're going to make mistakes.
(11:18):
There's going to be problems.
There's gonna be issues.
Like technological issues.
Things aren't going to work.
How are you going to deal with it?
Because I hate to break it to you.
The concert starts at half seven.
You know,
it's like we need to have a solution
by this time and we can't get it
when we do like like simulated
assessments within a department.
(11:38):
And I don't think you should necessarily
assess learners on these kind of things.
I think it will then just
if something goes wrong,
if it's a real world kind of
thing and something goes wrong,
they could just completely fall apart.
But because they've passed a setup and
I used that word kind of in quotations,
they've passed an assessment.
(11:58):
They have that confidence to then go,
oh, I can do this.
And they just take a moment,
they think and then they work
through the problem, which I mean,
let's face it,
I think for what we're producing,
an Fe problem solving is probably the,
the biggest skill that actually
needs to be developed is you're not
going to get it right first time.
No one ever gets it right first time.
(12:20):
So how do we make it?
How do you fix it or how do you make
it better? How do you improve on it?
Yeah, no, absolutely.
Exactly what they needed industry.
And often that's the hardest thing to teach.
In the college environment,
unless it especially similar
environment because yeah,
it's quite limited the ability to do that.
But no, I think it's really interesting.
So I guess just to clarify in simple terms,
(12:42):
you took what was 25 of the outcomes,
which are typically assessed individually.
You group those together and to really
say five or six different projects,
that's like 5 projects plus their
graded units, so six in total.
Projects are created unit.
And those projects were an amalgamation
of learning outcomes from different units
that were that fit together naturally.
(13:03):
They had a real life context.
So people saying, yeah,
that works for you and sound production.
Now I'm going to share an example
here from a different subject area
in terms of my background sport.
And again in my old world we
taught 18 units of a two years,
nine year, 19 year two.
And people always talk
them in the same order.
Or actually there was, for example,
there were two fitness units
which were very similar,
(13:23):
but they were taught separate,
was in that unit, was taught separate,
it was nutrition which was taught.
So that's five, I think.
Default, so was two,
and so that was 5 units.
There were big unit,
but again we did exactly the same thing.
We spent it.
It took a good afternoon for
the team to sit down and think,
right well, what what fits where,
how do we do that first,
second and third.
And the end of the end output was
(13:45):
those 5 units were effectively.
Put together into one bigger unit
and then three bigger assessments.
And for context,
in those five units originally there
used to be 3 assessments per unit,
so taught 15 assessments and they
were condensed into three big
assessments which were project based
and they worked with people from
outside of their classroom and took
(14:05):
them through the learning journey.
And the key bit there was that was
related then to them working in
industry as a personal trainer,
as a fitness instructor.
And that's ultimately for me why
it's important because we're trying
prepared learners for their next steps,
whether that be further study
or whether that be employment
and if it's employment,
they're going to be ready to do that.
So what you've just shared there and kind of
examples of I've worked with in the past.
(14:27):
It helps students really do that.
Yes, it takes time.
Yes, it's hard.
Yes, it's a change,
but actually the end output
and the impact is better.
So in your world,
what was the impact of doing this?
I mean the impact,
I mean the it's the dreaded like key
performance indicators comes into it as well,
but it always does,
you know we're always
marked against that and.
(14:48):
They they were not they were OK when
I started and again I'm not taking
any sort of kind of credit for the
the the kind of success of this but
they improved quite dramatically
over you know when we introduced
this more project based learning I
did it and the other thing I should
say is I only did it on the HND.
I wanted to do like a proof of concept.
Yep. I think whilst it's a you know
(15:08):
well it's a great idea probably one
of the worst thing anybody that
does curriculum lead or curriculum
development does is basically take
the entire curriculum across all
your your courses and rip it up.
Start again, because this is a recipe for
disaster because we might have got it wrong.
You know, we it might not have worked.
Thankfully it did.
And we've rolled that out across
(15:28):
our other kind of courses as well
because it shows that it works.
But something that I was recently
seeing at Dumfries and Galloway College
when I was down helping out with it,
I kind of development day.
Was and we're just about to start it again.
We're just about ready to do this again.
This was about five years ago.
(15:49):
This was pre COVID that we had done
this and the learners have changed.
The type of learner has changed and the
industry is also developed as much as.
So it's sound production, yeah,
but sound production is a technology
based industry and technology based
industries move at lightspeed.
So we're wanting to adapt.
(16:10):
So we're basically going
to do the same thing again.
The first one will be to
have a good hard look at.
The optional units like,
are we picking the right optional units?
Is the ones that we could swap out.
Is the ones that you know it works.
It doesn't.
I mean,
in an ideal world I wouldn't have
units at all and I would just have
the list of outcomes I'd have.
I'd I'd have mandatory outcomes
(16:30):
and optional outcomes and just
take the units away and be like,
you really want to give learners
the ownership of their own.
Their own learning is give them
the outcomes and tell them right
how do you want to be assessed?
I thought that was said that's a big
step but no I totally understand
the concept with that and I'm keen
(16:50):
just gonna go back to you kind of
I'm gonna say you glossed over them
because you won't take too much
credit but I'm right in thinking that
that the introduction of the the the
project did help with some of those
pins to improve in terms of the dead
I mean we went from probably the.
The low 60s, the low 60% for complete
with complete success to I think
(17:12):
it was the high 80s you know and
to 90 at some points.
And what we also noticed was withdrawals
were down and the complete with partial
success number which I know we all hate
the idea that a learner gets to the
end of the year but then doesn't get
the qualification that was sitting at near 0.
(17:32):
And, and I know it's difficult because
as always when we look at the idea,
I can tell you anything you wanted
to tell you.
And what I mean by that is, you know,
there's different students every year.
There's different stuff,
different permutations,
different, you know,
there's lots of different factors,
but do you think?
Some of those improvements
are always improvements were
because students felt maybe.
Happier in the course are more aware
(17:53):
there's maybe less of a workload
in terms of assessment burden.
Do you think was it a combination
of the above?
I think it's a combination of the above.
I certainly think that the the the
reduction of the assessment burden
because it's an interesting one.
I should have said this earlier by
doing a project based assessment,
by reducing the number of assessments
and going project,
you're not making anything easier
like you're not stripping it
(18:13):
back to it being just a really,
really simple thing.
If anything you're making very big projects,
but to a learner.
I think 5 is always less than 25.
It doesn't matter if the five
that we're talking about is
really massive projects and the 25
are really easy or simple.
It's five is less than 25,
and in a lot of ways they can really
(18:34):
get their teeth into it because they
have a bit of time to actually develop,
to make mistakes.
To get feedback to get the the
reviewed by their peers and let
other let their their classmates hear
things and then work on it over.
Could be some weak you know, few weeks,
could be a couple of months um,
(18:55):
rather than like a almost a rote
learning having assessment next week.
This is a tough I have to learn
for it and demonstrate it.
I have another one the week after.
This is the stuff I need to and then
you could do another assessment.
You could do one at the very end
saying right let's go over everything.
And they forgot it all.
Yeah.
No,
I totally agree that the kind of the
whole less is more analogy.
But yeah, you're right.
Yeah, yes, they are bigger,
(19:16):
they are more substantive assessments.
But the work over a
significant period of time,
the more invested in it as opposed to
the feeling of what you're saying is it,
you know, actually there's five projects.
You know, there's all those
negativities now as always whenever
we talk about topics like this.
But touch upon starting terms.
It's hard for people to change.
It's hard for them to kind
(19:37):
of think differently.
There's a natural questions that
came through when we discussed this,
a little bit of Expo,
we smooth the operational questions.
Yeah, what about the organization?
What about the evo?
No, I can't do that.
What did equality teams here,
what about Ivy and all those things?
I guess let's start with that.
Let's start with the EV and
kind of more organization.
What were their views when you did this?
Well, the Evie was very
(19:59):
positive when we showed them,
showed them.
I mean the reason being and it comes,
I'll tie the kind of quality
assurance element into it from our
side as well as as long as you map.
All the outcomes to where they're
being assessed and what project,
that's kind of it.
I mean and I'm not trying to trivialize
the a quality assurance project or process,
but essentially as long as you can say,
(20:20):
well this is demonstrated here
and here is the evidence that
demonstrates that it's kind of
done and it actually to be fair,
the EVV did say that it made a bit
more sense and they were really,
they could see that the substantive
nature of the work was a better quality
because these learning outcomes.
It's fitted well together.
(20:41):
Um, we're,
you know,
so that that takes like from an EV
standpoint as long as it's mapped well,
I think you're and that's true of the
quality assurance within the quality.
The quality Department for us were excellent.
They gave us a bit of help when
it came to the mapping of it and
then it's also been reciprocal
because I've also helped other
(21:02):
teams within the college map their
courses you know to it as well.
So it is,
it's this reciprocal kind of um arrangement.
We have.
Where it can get difficult sometimes
is a part time staff members.
If you've got any part time staff members,
they can sometimes feel a little
bit out of the loop when it comes to
(21:22):
the curriculum development because
obviously they're not in all the time.
I think it does come to how you
timetable your curriculum development
and that instead of maybe doing it over.
Say doing this exercise where
you would take the cards,
you would put them into five projects,
and you would start the project.
You start writing the projects
or start the discussion about
what the project should be.
(21:43):
You might be lucky and work with a lot of
full timers. I am quite lucky and do work
with mostly full time staff members.
If you're working with a lot of part-time,
I would suggest that you do your
curriculum development on the days where.
That most of the team are, yeah,
most of the team around it will
take longer obviously because
you're maybe talking about every
week rather than a couple of days.
(22:04):
But in order for the team,
the entire team to take ownership and
not have something that's left out on
the kind of outlying or I don't know
what's happening that's difficult or
that that can that can really help that.
And then the other one is timetables.
Like they're always going to
timetables as well because naturally
a lot of people say what,
(22:25):
how do you timetable that unit.
How did you get over that?
How did you deal with that challenge?
So weird again,
if it's for the listeners to kind of go
away and have a like maybe a discussion
with their quality department or their,
their, their systems people.
What we did was we actually have a
thing at Edinburgh College called EC
units and they are just like units.
(22:45):
They're units created by us and they
can be used for like a number of
different reasons.
Sometimes it's to give um, if.
Is to help is to aid with
timetabling essentially.
And what I did was instead of
having the actual SQA units,
I asked for these AC units to be
created for like Project One,
Project 2,
(23:06):
project, whatever.
And that's what got timetables.
So that's what the staff would
see on their timetables instead
of these individual units.
And they would know that in that
time these were the outcomes that
they had to the skills that they
had to deliver and the outcomes
that they were assessing.
And then really it came just
at the end of the year.
When you're doing the assessment
like resulting registers for um,
(23:28):
SQA that you would then give the
staff the actual unit codes to say,
right, that's what they've passed,
that's what they've gone through.
And we do that in the assessment and the
progression boards and the assessment boards.
Yeah.
So there are ways,
there are definitely ways to do it.
That's gonna come to yes.
There's always Ways and Means and
it's not circumventing things.
It's just kind of finding what
works when your organization.
(23:48):
But the key bit really I think kind
of people consider as they're going
through this process is one you mentioned,
they get all of the team.
Together and spend a bit of
time doing that to a degree.
The second point is that mapping
exercise is is essential.
You get that mapping document right,
that'll be everywhere.
That'll be part of your schema learning
that will be part of any work for EV,
part of any Moodle or early or wherever.
(24:09):
Make it explicitly clear where
all of the evidence for
each of the units can be found.
You know, so I totally agree with.
That's essential.
And I think the other bit that I guess
I'm keen to say that a bit of work
that we're involved with a minute
and you're involved with this with
Jordan at Dumfries and Galloway is.
This mindset can then be applied
(24:30):
then to the rest of the program.
And what I mean by that is if when
we look at delivering a course, we.
Move away to a degree from yeah,
unit and assessments and think,
right, what's the end product
that students need to have?
What are they able to do?
What do they need to know?
Use that as a starting point.
Build your curriculum from there.
(24:50):
Sequence it from there and then over
there these assessments and whatever
format project based or so on,
because then it makes it a lot clearer for
students as to as to their learning journey,
but also it gives us more
flexibility to think well.
What does what does that?
What do our programs need to do?
And you know that ethos.
(25:11):
For some it might just be a subtle shift,
but for others,
it's quite a radical difference
to move away from Unit 1,
Unit 2, Unit 3, unit 4IN essence,
the learning is still the same,
but it's kind of sequenced,
more appropriate to help students
develop their skills and take ownership
over their skills and knowledge.
So yeah, I think it's really,
really interesting point and the final
(25:32):
bit you mentioned it shouldn't come in,
is around.
That for me,
I had a conversation yesterday from learning
and teaching colleagues around right?
What's being taught face to face?
What's being taught online?
And the notional figure at this point in
time from the individuals in that room,
about 10%,
but whenever the conversation was,
well, what's being taught online,
it was a bit unclear.
Staff didn't quite know what part
(25:53):
of their program to teach online.
So therefore,
spending this bit of time reflecting
on the curriculum design as a whole,
what do students need to develop?
You can then look at what,
which medium is better to allow students
that time or that space to develop
these skills and knowledge and behaviors.
Sorry, that's kind of key to see going on.
No, you're absolutely right.
I mean we,
we don't have any online.
Mention now and after like
(26:15):
post code or post restrictions,
we are now back pretty much full time.
But it's because our,
of course needs that we need to be on campus.
That's not to say though that
we've kind of let resources or the
virtual learning environment kind of
slip because we're back on campus.
You know,
we believe a lot and a lot of
asynchronous learning that,
you know,
we need students or we need learners
(26:36):
to review things before they come in,
which again, I think it,
it treats them more like adults as well.
And I think sometimes.
That you get a lot of learners that
do flourish with that that they they
come from school and this is again
this is nothing about school it's just
it's the it's the attitude of they do
something they you know they there's
not a lot of pre work it's like you
do the work then you do the homework.
(26:57):
Whereas for us we're almost the
other way around and that we have
very little in the way of homework.
But we have a lot of like you
need to look at this before class
because I'm going to come in at
the point which that video stops.
I think it's really interesting because
for me I totally agree with you.
And again going back to my example
of an admin Physiology sport.
Is that is spending a lot of
(27:17):
time teaching muscles and bones.
But actually over the last couple
years I've developed a lot of
materials about muscles and bones.
So my discussion with colleagues now
is is from colleagues kind of work in
English sector as well as colleagues
in Scotland is actually why don't
we encourage learners to watch those
materials at home and then that face
to FaceTime you have a student is not
reduced but it's a greater richness
of the face to FaceTime from greater
interactions for depth of knowledge,
(27:38):
depth of understanding and
so on and so forth.
So that's how we use technology to
really enhance the curriculum offer.
So now I think that's really,
really interesting.
They put there because again,
when speaking to colleagues
I used to work with.
The common.
View I guess as to well actually let's
just put that afternoon online at an
easy unit and that's not about that.
(28:00):
It's about kind of looking
the program more holistically.
Where can you use the online learning
concept or part of a program to
enhance that learning experience.
Absolutely.
I mean I almost think it's a
misconception of what online
learning is because I think again
and it might be a layover from.
Lockdowns and pandemic and and whatever.
But it's more the idea that online
(28:21):
learning to me isn't a lecture
of sitting at home and their home
studio or their home whatever,
delivering a class to a group of
students that are watching it online.
That to me, isn't online learning.
Online learning is.
You know asynchronous,
so if if it's videos, efforts,
quizzes,
efforts,
we have a lot of kind of interactive user
guides that we kind of put together as well.
Because again the nice thing for us
(28:43):
is that we encourage our students to
use our facilities outside of ours.
So if they want to work on their own
recording projects, their own stuff,
outside all graded unit or coursework, fine.
But obviously staff aren't there
now if we don't have a lot of
online resources and materials,
if something goes wrong and the
student can't problem solve.
(29:04):
Sessions wasted, absolutely.
Whereas if we have that material
and they know that they've got
that knowledge Bank of of a vle,
then they can go on and it's like
we've got like common problems,
common common faults,
or if they just need to refresh their memory,
they can review it and then get all right,
OK, that's where my mistake was.
Or that's fixed it and it's also,
it's quite nice and class as well
(29:26):
because I've noticed it myself that.
When I've obviously I teach less
now being being uh A-Team manager,
but when I was teaching a bit more and
you had all these banks of materials,
what you'd notice is you deliver a class.
You deliver a new concept and you
would let the learners go and try it,
and you go around and you would see
maybe half a dozen of your class
(29:47):
looking back on old videos because they
had forgotten how to do something.
And they were all at different points and
they were all looking at different things.
And it meant that you weren't doing
that thing of they put the hand up,
Alan, I need a hand,
and then someone else puts their hand up.
Alan needed a hand.
And you're jumping about from
person to person.
Someone has to wait.
Someone has to whatever and adds
(30:08):
to the frustration.
So that to me that is kind of online.
It's not.
Also,
it's not making my job any easier
by any stretch of the imagination
because you're still helping them.
You're still giving them the feedback,
you're still working with the learners.
But you've got, they've got.
So much resources to aid their learning.
Now, what's autonomous learner?
And yeah,
I was going to mention this before,
but even more so now.
(30:29):
But the interesting bit here
is this is nothing new,
but the technology has enabled
this to take place easier.
I remember visiting a colleague 6-7
years ago down at an outstanding 6
four in Birmingham and he had this,
they had a three-week Lesson plan,
something through Lesson plan.
What do you mean?
He's got 10 different activities students
are working through at their own
pace depending on what they come up with,
what comes with.
And it was 10 bucks at side of the
(30:51):
room where they were getting resources.
Getting through it,
uh teacher was just sitting there
facilitating the room and filling the
gaps and learning technology understanding,
which is absolutely key.
And let's say technology or last
kind of six or seven years has really
enabled that now to be part of online
via teams or whichever vile people use.
And that see.
Because I guess my cynical view
sometimes is sometimes there's a
perception that each of these things are
(31:13):
different parts of the learning journey.
Well actually it's all the
same part of learning journey,
it's all holistic and the project based
assessment today is just another way.
A part of that COG to support
them as they
demonstrate their knowledge
understanding as well.
I mean, I think the thing about project
based learning as well is easier for
the learners to shape their project
around what they are interested in,
(31:35):
what they want to do,
and because it's not,
because it's so big,
there's so many moving parts on it.
They can really take
ownership of their project.
So it becomes that the staff who take
took ownership of developing the projects,
then it's then up to the students to take
ownership of delivering the project.
You know, and it's worked.
It has worked really well.
(31:55):
Like we we have had great success
and then it's nice when we have
industry partners came in.
We we hold a seminar series,
so we get,
we get industry professionals
coming in to talk to the students.
We had one on on Monday and it's
quite a well known film composer.
Yes, guy called Christian Henson and
he came in and he had written some
stuff or he writes a lot of music for film,
(32:16):
TV and video games and he
took the students through.
A project that he's currently working on.
And it was about time management,
project management,
problem solving,
you know,
as well as doing the actual thing itself
and it was great because we with that.
We were able to just turn around
and basically see all the stuff
that we were asking you to do.
(32:37):
You're going to do this in
the real world anyway,
so you might as well start now.
Which was it's it's great for that.
It's also that I always laugh that you
can tell a student the same thing 100
times and they won't listen to you.
And you got one person from outside
to see it. Contacts like instantly.
It's like, alright, OK, I'll do it now.
No, I totally agree.
I think.
No, that's totally agree with that kind
(32:59):
of real world context and understanding.
Like it helps them translate that into.
All right. Yeah.
Actually someone was in that job.
He's told me I need it, therefore I need it.
But no,
I think that's kind of really powerful.
Well, I think the bad news is, you know,
we've now come to time, Allen.
And what?
Going to talk all day on this So
what I'm gonna ask you now I could
have took this term from somebody
in the podcast often that the the
(33:19):
term well what's the take away
is well actually take away never
feels the full whereas actually
what you been nourishment.
So if anyone's listening to this
what kind of point should we give
that give a bit of nourishment that
can take away and think right I'm
going to build whatever I do on
on these two or three principles.
So what do you think are the kind
of key points to consider when
anyone's going to considering project
based learning or some of the wider
(33:41):
things we'll discuss this morning.
I mean, I think the kind
of things to consider is.
You've got nothing to lose by
starting the conversation for sure.
You know if especially if it's a
a framework or a qualification,
it's maybe been around for a while.
You know, it could do with being
refreshed and and sometimes what
you find is when you start the
conversation the staff members have
(34:02):
been thinking the same thing but
it's just maybe not come together as
much because it comes to that thing.
We do it the same way every year.
Well let's not.
I think it takes one person to say well,
let's try something different,
let's and I I hate.
I hate this term, but let's be brave.
Let's try something new.
Um, and I do think for those of you
(34:23):
that for anybody that's listening who's
been thinking about doing something
and it doesn't even need to be what
we've discussed Johnny or the method.
It could just be trying something different
within a curriculum design and development.
My thing would be just do it.
Like actually just do it because
you've got nothing to lose and
(34:44):
everything to gain and the the.
The engagement from the learners from
on our from our side has been excellent.
The change in the Pi have been great,
but that's an aside as to the
learner journey has just been a lot
more structured and a lot more.
Realistic, I think correct because for me,
the Pi of the output, the output,
(35:05):
the output of that enhancement,
so not totally agree.
Well, Alan, thank you so much for your time.
Kind of really interesting as always,
kind of lots of key points there
for listeners to consider.
So thank you so much for joining us.
It's been an absolute pleasure.
Thanks for asking me.
Thank you.
About.
Hello and welcome to the latest episode
of the Pedagogy Matters Podcast.
The purpose of the podcast is to
bring the foursome key topics of
conversation in relation to relation
to learning and teaching, to discuss,
to break down aspects of practice
and provide snippets of advice and
guidance as to how to integrate
these into our daily practice.
Today I'm delighted to be joined by
Alan Glenn from Edinburgh College.
We'll be discussing project based learning.
(00:28):
Alan, good morning, how are you?
Morning, Johnny. I'm well, thanks.
Thanks very much for asking me to
come in and be on the podcast.
It's a great pleasure,
not fantastic, great to have you.
So I know we've,
we've talked quite a bit in
the last six months or so.
You've delivered a session for us
at Expo and really on the back of
that interest we'll keep the kind
of discuss and explore a little
bit more about book some of the
initiatives that you've done and
(00:49):
really explore those a bit further.
So yeah, let's get straight.
So project based learning.
I guess in your world.
Are you OK to kind of share what you did,
what that means to you and
kind of where that came from?
Yeah, I mean, I think how it came about,
I mean to give a little bit
of the kind of back story.
I have been at Edinburgh
College about 15 years.
I started as the saxophone teacher in the
(01:12):
music department and then obviously I,
as the years developed or
as the years went on, I,
my manager,
realized I had other skills and other
abilities who got me into the classroom
doing a bit of classroom teaching
about five years ago I was made.
A curriculum leader,
but the curriculum leader of sound
production music business which is
a whole other campus moved down.
(01:33):
And then I'm now the curriculum
team manager for that team.
And and it came about from that
initial move from the music department
to the sound production department.
Because you were coming into
a team with an established UM
methods assessment method,
assessment kind of practice
and you were the outsider.
(01:53):
So you could come at it
from quite a dispassionate.
Um, kind of way.
And have a look at things and just you know,
take the goods and the bad and work with the,
you know,
it's the usual thing,
work with the goods and like
change up the bad things.
And the one thing I I noticed was
just the amount of duplication
of assessment and the amount of
(02:15):
tiny little assessments which just
overwhelmed like the learners like
overwhelmed the the, you know,
and I I think that that's something
that in all honesty,
I mean the listeners might be
thinking the same thing.
It's getting worse.
It's easier to overwhelm learners now,
especially off the back of COVID.
(02:35):
Look like it's really interesting
and the kind of point you mentioned
there was you could see that kind of
objectively I guess kind of coming in
fresh into a team and in your race and
kind of reflect on my own practice,
we always did what we always did.
We always taught the same units in
the same order because that was so
and so's units are they like to teach
that first and often there was a,
there was a purpose to that sequencing,
(02:56):
but still those assessments here,
right, they became the focal points
and in some cases there was kind
of that fear of change. Yeah. So.
So yes, so tell us a bit more.
What you did so you can identify the,
the challenge there or the problem is
the volume of assessment and it's too
much and so our micro assessments,
so, So what did you do?
So this kind of came about twofold
(03:16):
as well because the the HND and sound
production was changing frameworks.
The SQA had updated it,
so things needed to change anyway,
which was quite nice because you
took the first hurdle,
potential hurdle out of the equation.
And that you just said like people,
some people just don't like change.
But this was like force that we
were going to have to change.
It was new units,
(03:36):
it was new learning outcomes.
So let's let's do it.
So.
Again,
I I I wanted the the staff to take
complete ownership of assessments of units.
Well not even units because I I
don't we've talked about this before.
I don't really think in terms of units.
I I think if you do think in terms of units
it's fine to me it's part of the problem.
(03:57):
Um, So what I did was.
I took a load of index cards and I
wrote the learning outcomes from the
squas unit descriptors on one side,
and I wrote the units that they
were for on from on the other side.
And then basically I asked the
staff without any real prep.
(04:18):
So don't look at unit specs,
don't look at learning outcome,
don't look at anything for about
2 weeks beforehand.
Arrange those cards into a set
number of piles.
So I think it was about five,
um off outcomes that you think work
or that you think will match up.
Don't turn them over,
don't look at the units just to see it.
(04:38):
And the reason that I went for 5:00
AM is because there was actually
more units than 5 units.
So you're instantly bringing by
putting in that, um, that restriction,
you're instantly bringing down
the assessment burden.
So that that got really kind of
it got them really thinking and
what was quite nice was I I've,
I've said this,
(04:59):
I've I've said this to a few teams when I've,
I've kind of chatted about this is I've
done it the night before and I was actually,
I was in the pub just having
like it was one of those things,
get out of the flat,
get out of you know,
go to the pub and just have a seat.
And I'm sad that way.
I took these cards with me and I sat and
I just did it myself and the team came up
(05:21):
with a completely different set of five.
Than I did, yeah.
Which was great because it wasn't me
trying to force my will on the team,
it was them taking total ownership off.
This is the course,
this is the the, the outcomes.
How are we going to put them into
projects that we think work?
And that's really interesting.
But you can't touched upon earlier
(05:41):
within that description around
the kind of move away from units
to a degree there as well.
I know we've talked in the past,
it's kind of more around kind of
looking more holistic what the program
in terms of whether you use skills,
knowledge,
behaviors are different terminology of
whatever you use in terms of what is
that students actually need to be able to do,
what do they need to be able to
know and sometimes the units,
we don't know whether written
(06:02):
in the way that you saw,
But yeah,
I agree it's kind of really important
for colleagues to yeah to have that.
Time and flexibility to reflect
and as you've just said there,
they came up with a different set
of UH-5 than you did and that's
fine because it's all around
kind of perspective around.
What skills,
notice behaviors or whatever language
people choose to use to focus around?
(06:23):
So you've done that,
you've looked at it, he said.
It's 25 learning outcomes.
You've kind of put them into five piles.
Then what happened?
Really it's then it was,
it was a continual discussion
amongst the staff.
The the usual thing or the thing can be
is that you just then send each staff
member away to do their own thing,
create their own assessments.
But if you do that, I feel, I mean again,
(06:45):
that's all that I'm given is,
is my opinion on what I think
works and what doesn't.
You know,
some people will probably massively disagree
with me and others might be thinking,
you know, it's something worth trying,
but if you let the staff just
go away and do their own thing.
You might as well have just given
them the units in the 1st place,
I think.
This was about how can each
(07:07):
assessment feed into.
The other assessment so it's not
just project based learning,
it's like integrated project based learning.
If you want to give it a name,
so for example.
There's a,
there's a,
there was a project which was based
on post production for video.
So it's the idea of creating sound
effects or um,
(07:27):
dialogue or anything like that
for a piece of video.
It's one of the big trends in the
industry and it's one of the biggest
employers in the industry at the moment.
Well,
instead of getting them to record.
At separately,
there's also a recording project.
So why can't they record the stuff for
that project and the other assessment
(07:48):
and then use it in the next one.
And again, it's what you notice
when you do it like this as well.
You can actually get the
assessments done fairly quickly.
Like you're not taking.
I have this big thing as well.
I was saying we give the academic
teams 36 teaching weeks,
but they and they take that at sometimes
(08:08):
they take that really seriously.
It's like right.
36 weeks to teach.
So they'll go to the absolute bitter end
of and then they'll give the assessment.
I just wanted to get the learners.
We all wanted to get the learners
with the basic understanding,
the basic ability to do the work, to record,
to edit to whatever the outcomes were.
And then once they had the confidence
(08:30):
that they've passed their assessment,
so they're demonstrating a basic
knowledge and understanding.
It was then just more events,
more things are the same,
more real world stuff.
That we could then.
So for recording a lot of our stuff
we would bring bands in or we would go
out into the kind of local community
go out and schools and we take the students,
take a load of equipment
(08:50):
and we would record it.
They're not,
that's not assessed,
but they were ending up putting all this
stuff in their graded units as well.
So it ended ended up becoming assessed
and the confidence that you got
from the learners when they started
seeing them passing their course
early on gave them that kind of
driving determination to kind of keep going.
(09:10):
As opposed to just a lot of learning and
then an assessment which harks back to.
The old school exams, yeah,
no, you're totally right.
And we always talk like, kind of.
We want learners to own their learning
and to kind of lead their learning.
And you kind of you,
you touched upon there in terms of the
real world learning that that that's
(09:31):
the way it kind of our program should be.
Where we can make them especially
for occasional programs is exposure
to real world where we can do that's
a Holy Grail for lots of people.
The difficulty is of well how do I do it?
How do I fit that into my timetable.
There's so many things you've touched upon
there in terms of the 36 week duration.
Well yeah,
one,
yeah but you don't have to teach
well 36 weeks it's around the
(09:52):
curation development skills.
Another bit to kind of consider is
there's a lot of conversation education.
No,
but differentiate differentiations
are normal.
It should be about adaptive teaching,
which kind of really kind of
what you just alluded to there.
Everyone works at their own pace
and if they're going through
and developing their skills,
then if they're ready for assessment,
ready for assessment.
And the final bit,
the most important bit for me is just
(10:14):
because Unit 1 says ricotta develop
skill in Unit 2 and says record,
you shouldn't do that order,
put them together.
You're absolutely right.
You know, it's more holistic,
it's better for students real world
when they're out doing whatever
job they'll put those together.
There's no point.
And segmenting that too much and keep
it totally separate is different things.
It's bringing that together and
students then development skills
(10:35):
and I know you mentioned I'm going
to talk previously actually some
of the projects that you made were
linked with industry and they were
four industry and some people kind
of got selected as that, right?
That's right.
I mean we we've done um,
we have a lot of kind of good
industry partners and you know they
were using their projects as almost
like showreels or interview prep
or whatever so that they could get
(10:57):
selected for external projects by the
industry partners which is something
that we cannot simulate and college
or no one can simulate in college.
The one,
the big thing about the real
world situation that I always
talk about and especially I mean
coming from any industry but
particularly creative industries
and music and sound production is.
You're going to make mistakes.
(11:18):
There's going to be problems.
There's gonna be issues.
Like technological issues.
Things aren't going to work.
How are you going to deal with it?
Because I hate to break it to you.
The concert starts at half seven.
You know,
it's like we need to have a solution
by this time and we can't get it
when we do like like simulated
assessments within a department.
(11:38):
And I don't think you should necessarily
assess learners on these kind of things.
I think it will then just
if something goes wrong,
if it's a real world kind of
thing and something goes wrong,
they could just completely fall apart.
But because they've passed a setup and
I used that word kind of in quotations,
they've passed an assessment.
(11:58):
They have that confidence to then go,
oh, I can do this.
And they just take a moment,
they think and then they work
through the problem, which I mean,
let's face it,
I think for what we're producing,
an Fe problem solving is probably the,
the biggest skill that actually
needs to be developed is you're not
going to get it right first time.
No one ever gets it right first time.
(12:20):
So how do we make it?
How do you fix it or how do you make
it better? How do you improve on it?
Yeah, no, absolutely.
Exactly what they needed industry.
And often that's the hardest thing to teach.
In the college environment,
unless it especially similar
environment because yeah,
it's quite limited the ability to do that.
But no, I think it's really interesting.
So I guess just to clarify in simple terms,
(12:42):
you took what was 25 of the outcomes,
which are typically assessed individually.
You group those together and to really
say five or six different projects,
that's like 5 projects plus their
graded units, so six in total.
Projects are created unit.
And those projects were an amalgamation
of learning outcomes from different units
that were that fit together naturally.
(13:03):
They had a real life context.
So people saying, yeah,
that works for you and sound production.
Now I'm going to share an example
here from a different subject area
in terms of my background sport.
And again in my old world we
taught 18 units of a two years,
nine year, 19 year two.
And people always talk
them in the same order.
Or actually there was, for example,
there were two fitness units
which were very similar,
(13:23):
but they were taught separate,
was in that unit, was taught separate,
it was nutrition which was taught.
So that's five, I think.
Default, so was two,
and so that was 5 units.
There were big unit,
but again we did exactly the same thing.
We spent it.
It took a good afternoon for
the team to sit down and think,
right well, what what fits where,
how do we do that first,
second and third.
And the end of the end output was
(13:45):
those 5 units were effectively.
Put together into one bigger unit
and then three bigger assessments.
And for context,
in those five units originally there
used to be 3 assessments per unit,
so taught 15 assessments and they
were condensed into three big
assessments which were project based
and they worked with people from
outside of their classroom and took
(14:05):
them through the learning journey.
And the key bit there was that was
related then to them working in
industry as a personal trainer,
as a fitness instructor.
And that's ultimately for me why
it's important because we're trying
prepared learners for their next steps,
whether that be further study
or whether that be employment
and if it's employment,
they're going to be ready to do that.
So what you've just shared there and kind of
examples of I've worked with in the past.
(14:27):
It helps students really do that.
Yes, it takes time.
Yes, it's hard.
Yes, it's a change,
but actually the end output
and the impact is better.
So in your world,
what was the impact of doing this?
I mean the impact,
I mean the it's the dreaded like key
performance indicators comes into it as well,
but it always does,
you know we're always
marked against that and.
(14:48):
They they were not they were OK when
I started and again I'm not taking
any sort of kind of credit for the
the the kind of success of this but
they improved quite dramatically
over you know when we introduced
this more project based learning I
did it and the other thing I should
say is I only did it on the HND.
I wanted to do like a proof of concept.
Yep. I think whilst it's a you know
(15:08):
well it's a great idea probably one
of the worst thing anybody that
does curriculum lead or curriculum
development does is basically take
the entire curriculum across all
your your courses and rip it up.
Start again, because this is a recipe for
disaster because we might have got it wrong.
You know, we it might not have worked.
Thankfully it did.
And we've rolled that out across
(15:28):
our other kind of courses as well
because it shows that it works.
But something that I was recently
seeing at Dumfries and Galloway College
when I was down helping out with it,
I kind of development day.
Was and we're just about to start it again.
We're just about ready to do this again.
This was about five years ago.
(15:49):
This was pre COVID that we had done
this and the learners have changed.
The type of learner has changed and the
industry is also developed as much as.
So it's sound production, yeah,
but sound production is a technology
based industry and technology based
industries move at lightspeed.
So we're wanting to adapt.
(16:10):
So we're basically going
to do the same thing again.
The first one will be to
have a good hard look at.
The optional units like,
are we picking the right optional units?
Is the ones that we could swap out.
Is the ones that you know it works.
It doesn't.
I mean,
in an ideal world I wouldn't have
units at all and I would just have
the list of outcomes I'd have.
I'd I'd have mandatory outcomes
(16:30):
and optional outcomes and just
take the units away and be like,
you really want to give learners
the ownership of their own.
Their own learning is give them
the outcomes and tell them right
how do you want to be assessed?
I thought that was said that's a big
step but no I totally understand
the concept with that and I'm keen
(16:50):
just gonna go back to you kind of
I'm gonna say you glossed over them
because you won't take too much
credit but I'm right in thinking that
that the introduction of the the the
project did help with some of those
pins to improve in terms of the dead
I mean we went from probably the.
The low 60s, the low 60% for complete
with complete success to I think
(17:12):
it was the high 80s you know and
to 90 at some points.
And what we also noticed was withdrawals
were down and the complete with partial
success number which I know we all hate
the idea that a learner gets to the
end of the year but then doesn't get
the qualification that was sitting at near 0.
(17:32):
And, and I know it's difficult because
as always when we look at the idea,
I can tell you anything you wanted
to tell you.
And what I mean by that is, you know,
there's different students every year.
There's different stuff,
different permutations,
different, you know,
there's lots of different factors,
but do you think?
Some of those improvements
are always improvements were
because students felt maybe.
Happier in the course are more aware
(17:53):
there's maybe less of a workload
in terms of assessment burden.
Do you think was it a combination
of the above?
I think it's a combination of the above.
I certainly think that the the the
reduction of the assessment burden
because it's an interesting one.
I should have said this earlier by
doing a project based assessment,
by reducing the number of assessments
and going project,
you're not making anything easier
like you're not stripping it
(18:13):
back to it being just a really,
really simple thing.
If anything you're making very big projects,
but to a learner.
I think 5 is always less than 25.
It doesn't matter if the five
that we're talking about is
really massive projects and the 25
are really easy or simple.
It's five is less than 25,
and in a lot of ways they can really
(18:34):
get their teeth into it because they
have a bit of time to actually develop,
to make mistakes.
To get feedback to get the the
reviewed by their peers and let
other let their their classmates hear
things and then work on it over.
Could be some weak you know, few weeks,
could be a couple of months um,
(18:55):
rather than like a almost a rote
learning having assessment next week.
This is a tough I have to learn
for it and demonstrate it.
I have another one the week after.
This is the stuff I need to and then
you could do another assessment.
You could do one at the very end
saying right let's go over everything.
And they forgot it all.
Yeah.
No,
I totally agree that the kind of the
whole less is more analogy.
But yeah, you're right.
Yeah, yes, they are bigger,
(19:16):
they are more substantive assessments.
But the work over a
significant period of time,
the more invested in it as opposed to
the feeling of what you're saying is it,
you know, actually there's five projects.
You know, there's all those
negativities now as always whenever
we talk about topics like this.
But touch upon starting terms.
It's hard for people to change.
It's hard for them to kind
(19:37):
of think differently.
There's a natural questions that
came through when we discussed this,
a little bit of Expo,
we smooth the operational questions.
Yeah, what about the organization?
What about the evo?
No, I can't do that.
What did equality teams here,
what about Ivy and all those things?
I guess let's start with that.
Let's start with the EV and
kind of more organization.
What were their views when you did this?
Well, the Evie was very
(19:59):
positive when we showed them,
showed them.
I mean the reason being and it comes,
I'll tie the kind of quality
assurance element into it from our
side as well as as long as you map.
All the outcomes to where they're
being assessed and what project,
that's kind of it.
I mean and I'm not trying to trivialize
the a quality assurance project or process,
but essentially as long as you can say,
(20:20):
well this is demonstrated here
and here is the evidence that
demonstrates that it's kind of
done and it actually to be fair,
the EVV did say that it made a bit
more sense and they were really,
they could see that the substantive
nature of the work was a better quality
because these learning outcomes.
It's fitted well together.
(20:41):
Um, we're,
you know,
so that that takes like from an EV
standpoint as long as it's mapped well,
I think you're and that's true of the
quality assurance within the quality.
The quality Department for us were excellent.
They gave us a bit of help when
it came to the mapping of it and
then it's also been reciprocal
because I've also helped other
(21:02):
teams within the college map their
courses you know to it as well.
So it is,
it's this reciprocal kind of um arrangement.
We have.
Where it can get difficult sometimes
is a part time staff members.
If you've got any part time staff members,
they can sometimes feel a little
bit out of the loop when it comes to
(21:22):
the curriculum development because
obviously they're not in all the time.
I think it does come to how you
timetable your curriculum development
and that instead of maybe doing it over.
Say doing this exercise where
you would take the cards,
you would put them into five projects,
and you would start the project.
You start writing the projects
or start the discussion about
what the project should be.
(21:43):
You might be lucky and work with a lot of
full timers. I am quite lucky and do work
with mostly full time staff members.
If you're working with a lot of part-time,
I would suggest that you do your
curriculum development on the days where.
That most of the team are, yeah,
most of the team around it will
take longer obviously because
you're maybe talking about every
week rather than a couple of days.
(22:04):
But in order for the team,
the entire team to take ownership and
not have something that's left out on
the kind of outlying or I don't know
what's happening that's difficult or
that that can that can really help that.
And then the other one is timetables.
Like they're always going to
timetables as well because naturally
a lot of people say what,
(22:25):
how do you timetable that unit.
How did you get over that?
How did you deal with that challenge?
So weird again,
if it's for the listeners to kind of go
away and have a like maybe a discussion
with their quality department or their,
their, their systems people.
What we did was we actually have a
thing at Edinburgh College called EC
units and they are just like units.
(22:45):
They're units created by us and they
can be used for like a number of
different reasons.
Sometimes it's to give um, if.
Is to help is to aid with
timetabling essentially.
And what I did was instead of
having the actual SQA units,
I asked for these AC units to be
created for like Project One,
Project 2,
(23:06):
project, whatever.
And that's what got timetables.
So that's what the staff would
see on their timetables instead
of these individual units.
And they would know that in that
time these were the outcomes that
they had to the skills that they
had to deliver and the outcomes
that they were assessing.
And then really it came just
at the end of the year.
When you're doing the assessment
like resulting registers for um,
(23:28):
SQA that you would then give the
staff the actual unit codes to say,
right, that's what they've passed,
that's what they've gone through.
And we do that in the assessment and the
progression boards and the assessment boards.
Yeah.
So there are ways,
there are definitely ways to do it.
That's gonna come to yes.
There's always Ways and Means and
it's not circumventing things.
It's just kind of finding what
works when your organization.
(23:48):
But the key bit really I think kind
of people consider as they're going
through this process is one you mentioned,
they get all of the team.
Together and spend a bit of
time doing that to a degree.
The second point is that mapping
exercise is is essential.
You get that mapping document right,
that'll be everywhere.
That'll be part of your schema learning
that will be part of any work for EV,
part of any Moodle or early or wherever.
(24:09):
Make it explicitly clear where
all of the evidence for
each of the units can be found.
You know, so I totally agree with.
That's essential.
And I think the other bit that I guess
I'm keen to say that a bit of work
that we're involved with a minute
and you're involved with this with
Jordan at Dumfries and Galloway is.
This mindset can then be applied
(24:30):
then to the rest of the program.
And what I mean by that is if when
we look at delivering a course, we.
Move away to a degree from yeah,
unit and assessments and think,
right, what's the end product
that students need to have?
What are they able to do?
What do they need to know?
Use that as a starting point.
Build your curriculum from there.
(24:50):
Sequence it from there and then over
there these assessments and whatever
format project based or so on,
because then it makes it a lot clearer for
students as to as to their learning journey,
but also it gives us more
flexibility to think well.
What does what does that?
What do our programs need to do?
And you know that ethos.
(25:11):
For some it might just be a subtle shift,
but for others,
it's quite a radical difference
to move away from Unit 1,
Unit 2, Unit 3, unit 4IN essence,
the learning is still the same,
but it's kind of sequenced,
more appropriate to help students
develop their skills and take ownership
over their skills and knowledge.
So yeah, I think it's really,
really interesting point and the final
(25:32):
bit you mentioned it shouldn't come in,
is around.
That for me,
I had a conversation yesterday from learning
and teaching colleagues around right?
What's being taught face to face?
What's being taught online?
And the notional figure at this point in
time from the individuals in that room,
about 10%,
but whenever the conversation was,
well, what's being taught online,
it was a bit unclear.
Staff didn't quite know what part
(25:53):
of their program to teach online.
So therefore,
spending this bit of time reflecting
on the curriculum design as a whole,
what do students need to develop?
You can then look at what,
which medium is better to allow students
that time or that space to develop
these skills and knowledge and behaviors.
Sorry, that's kind of key to see going on.
No, you're absolutely right.
I mean we,
we don't have any online.
Mention now and after like
(26:15):
post code or post restrictions,
we are now back pretty much full time.
But it's because our,
of course needs that we need to be on campus.
That's not to say though that
we've kind of let resources or the
virtual learning environment kind of
slip because we're back on campus.
You know,
we believe a lot and a lot of
asynchronous learning that,
you know,
we need students or we need learners
(26:36):
to review things before they come in,
which again, I think it,
it treats them more like adults as well.
And I think sometimes.
That you get a lot of learners that
do flourish with that that they they
come from school and this is again
this is nothing about school it's just
it's the it's the attitude of they do
something they you know they there's
not a lot of pre work it's like you
do the work then you do the homework.
(26:57):
Whereas for us we're almost the
other way around and that we have
very little in the way of homework.
But we have a lot of like you
need to look at this before class
because I'm going to come in at
the point which that video stops.
I think it's really interesting because
for me I totally agree with you.
And again going back to my example
of an admin Physiology sport.
Is that is spending a lot of
(27:17):
time teaching muscles and bones.
But actually over the last couple
years I've developed a lot of
materials about muscles and bones.
So my discussion with colleagues now
is is from colleagues kind of work in
English sector as well as colleagues
in Scotland is actually why don't
we encourage learners to watch those
materials at home and then that face
to FaceTime you have a student is not
reduced but it's a greater richness
of the face to FaceTime from greater
interactions for depth of knowledge,
(27:38):
depth of understanding and
so on and so forth.
So that's how we use technology to
really enhance the curriculum offer.
So now I think that's really,
really interesting.
They put there because again,
when speaking to colleagues
I used to work with.
The common.
View I guess as to well actually let's
just put that afternoon online at an
easy unit and that's not about that.
(28:00):
It's about kind of looking
the program more holistically.
Where can you use the online learning
concept or part of a program to
enhance that learning experience.
Absolutely.
I mean I almost think it's a
misconception of what online
learning is because I think again
and it might be a layover from.
Lockdowns and pandemic and and whatever.
But it's more the idea that online
(28:21):
learning to me isn't a lecture
of sitting at home and their home
studio or their home whatever,
delivering a class to a group of
students that are watching it online.
That to me, isn't online learning.
Online learning is.
You know asynchronous,
so if if it's videos, efforts,
quizzes,
efforts,
we have a lot of kind of interactive user
guides that we kind of put together as well.
Because again the nice thing for us
(28:43):
is that we encourage our students to
use our facilities outside of ours.
So if they want to work on their own
recording projects, their own stuff,
outside all graded unit or coursework, fine.
But obviously staff aren't there
now if we don't have a lot of
online resources and materials,
if something goes wrong and the
student can't problem solve.
(29:04):
Sessions wasted, absolutely.
Whereas if we have that material
and they know that they've got
that knowledge Bank of of a vle,
then they can go on and it's like
we've got like common problems,
common common faults,
or if they just need to refresh their memory,
they can review it and then get all right,
OK, that's where my mistake was.
Or that's fixed it and it's also,
it's quite nice and class as well
(29:26):
because I've noticed it myself that.
When I've obviously I teach less
now being being uh A-Team manager,
but when I was teaching a bit more and
you had all these banks of materials,
what you'd notice is you deliver a class.
You deliver a new concept and you
would let the learners go and try it,
and you go around and you would see
maybe half a dozen of your class
(29:47):
looking back on old videos because they
had forgotten how to do something.
And they were all at different points and
they were all looking at different things.
And it meant that you weren't doing
that thing of they put the hand up,
Alan, I need a hand,
and then someone else puts their hand up.
Alan needed a hand.
And you're jumping about from
person to person.
Someone has to wait.
Someone has to whatever and adds
(30:08):
to the frustration.
So that to me that is kind of online.
It's not.
Also,
it's not making my job any easier
by any stretch of the imagination
because you're still helping them.
You're still giving them the feedback,
you're still working with the learners.
But you've got, they've got.
So much resources to aid their learning.
Now, what's autonomous learner?
And yeah,
I was going to mention this before,
but even more so now.
(30:29):
But the interesting bit here
is this is nothing new,
but the technology has enabled
this to take place easier.
I remember visiting a colleague 6-7
years ago down at an outstanding 6
four in Birmingham and he had this,
they had a three-week Lesson plan,
something through Lesson plan.
What do you mean?
He's got 10 different activities students
are working through at their own
pace depending on what they come up with,
what comes with.
And it was 10 bucks at side of the
(30:51):
room where they were getting resources.
Getting through it,
uh teacher was just sitting there
facilitating the room and filling the
gaps and learning technology understanding,
which is absolutely key.
And let's say technology or last
kind of six or seven years has really
enabled that now to be part of online
via teams or whichever vile people use.
And that see.
Because I guess my cynical view
sometimes is sometimes there's a
perception that each of these things are
(31:13):
different parts of the learning journey.
Well actually it's all the
same part of learning journey,
it's all holistic and the project based
assessment today is just another way.
A part of that COG to support
them as they
demonstrate their knowledge
understanding as well.
I mean, I think the thing about project
based learning as well is easier for
the learners to shape their project
around what they are interested in,
(31:35):
what they want to do,
and because it's not,
because it's so big,
there's so many moving parts on it.
They can really take
ownership of their project.
So it becomes that the staff who take
took ownership of developing the projects,
then it's then up to the students to take
ownership of delivering the project.
You know, and it's worked.
It has worked really well.
(31:55):
Like we we have had great success
and then it's nice when we have
industry partners came in.
We we hold a seminar series,
so we get,
we get industry professionals
coming in to talk to the students.
We had one on on Monday and it's
quite a well known film composer.
Yes, guy called Christian Henson and
he came in and he had written some
stuff or he writes a lot of music for film,
(32:16):
TV and video games and he
took the students through.
A project that he's currently working on.
And it was about time management,
project management,
problem solving,
you know,
as well as doing the actual thing itself
and it was great because we with that.
We were able to just turn around
and basically see all the stuff
that we were asking you to do.
(32:37):
You're going to do this in
the real world anyway,
so you might as well start now.
Which was it's it's great for that.
It's also that I always laugh that you
can tell a student the same thing 100
times and they won't listen to you.
And you got one person from outside
to see it. Contacts like instantly.
It's like, alright, OK, I'll do it now.
No, I totally agree.
I think.
No, that's totally agree with that kind
(32:59):
of real world context and understanding.
Like it helps them translate that into.
All right. Yeah.
Actually someone was in that job.
He's told me I need it, therefore I need it.
But no,
I think that's kind of really powerful.
Well, I think the bad news is, you know,
we've now come to time, Allen.
And what?
Going to talk all day on this So
what I'm gonna ask you now I could
have took this term from somebody
in the podcast often that the the
(33:19):
term well what's the take away
is well actually take away never
feels the full whereas actually
what you been nourishment.
So if anyone's listening to this
what kind of point should we give
that give a bit of nourishment that
can take away and think right I'm
going to build whatever I do on
on these two or three principles.
So what do you think are the kind
of key points to consider when
anyone's going to considering project
based learning or some of the wider
(33:41):
things we'll discuss this morning.
I mean, I think the kind
of things to consider is.
You've got nothing to lose by
starting the conversation for sure.
You know if especially if it's a
a framework or a qualification,
it's maybe been around for a while.
You know, it could do with being
refreshed and and sometimes what
you find is when you start the
conversation the staff members have
(34:02):
been thinking the same thing but
it's just maybe not come together as
much because it comes to that thing.
We do it the same way every year.
Well let's not.
I think it takes one person to say well,
let's try something different,
let's and I I hate.
I hate this term, but let's be brave.
Let's try something new.
Um, and I do think for those of you
(34:23):
that for anybody that's listening who's
been thinking about doing something
and it doesn't even need to be what
we've discussed Johnny or the method.
It could just be trying something different
within a curriculum design and development.
My thing would be just do it.
Like actually just do it because
you've got nothing to lose and
(34:44):
everything to gain and the the.
The engagement from the learners from
on our from our side has been excellent.
The change in the Pi have been great,
but that's an aside as to the
learner journey has just been a lot
more structured and a lot more.
Realistic, I think correct because for me,
the Pi of the output, the output,
(35:05):
the output of that enhancement,
so not totally agree.
Well, Alan, thank you so much for your time.
Kind of really interesting as always,
kind of lots of key points there
for listeners to consider.
So thank you so much for joining us.
It's been an absolute pleasure.
Thanks for asking me.
Thank you.
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