On National Teacher Day, meet the 2024-25 Kenan Fellows
Blended learning - a whole college approach
1. Blended Learning
– A whole college
approach
Peter Kilcoyne – ILT Director
pkilcoyne@howcollege.ac.uk
2. 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
3. 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
4. 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)
5. 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
11. 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”
12. Blended Learning Consortium
How 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
15. 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
19. First round of development
• Digital Literacy L2
• Employability L2
• Employability L3
• English L2
• Engineering L2
• Engineering L3
• Health and Safety in
Social Care L2
20. 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
21. 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)
22. What kind of content is being built
and sharedExamples
• Construction
• English L2
• Digital Literacy
• Engineering L2
• Health and Social Care L2
24. The power of the consortium
Digital 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
25. The power of a consortium
Digital 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
26. 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
27. Future Plans
• Continued growth of FE Consortium
• Sixth Form Colleges Consortium
• ACL Consortium
• Professional Development Consortium
• HE Consortium
• US Consortium
28. 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
Assessor – member of course team; Identifying/agreeing learning outcomes via SOLA; participating in building SOLA modules; assessment of SOLA online submissions as agreed by team. Assessors also add learning outcomes (and, later, grades) to ProMonitor.
Course teaching staff – to work with Assessor, ILT and Study Centre staff to develop high quality SOLA Modules for our learners; assessment of SOLA online submissions as agreed by team
Personal Tutor – Monitor learner participation and progress and through target-setting in ILP’s; ensure assessment tasks are completed
Study Centre staff – support of classes in schedules sessions; monitoring and supporting; assistance in SOLA module developments
CRQ Managers - approve curriculum planning and scheduling; ensure teams are effectively implementing SOLA
CRQ Leaders - plan SOLA into course delivery; respond to quality issues; monitor progress against assessment schedule; ensure schemes of work produced within timeframes
ILT staff - provide support to course teams in developing SOLA; live online support for learners on SOLA
