case studies south cheshire (1)

8/6/2019 Case Studies South Cheshire (1)

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TECHNICAL CASE STUDY FOR THE NLN MATERIALS

Type of resource Case StudyTitle Implementing the NLN materials at South Cheshire CollegeAuthor Peter Harding On-Line Learning Co-ordinator

Suzanne Dale Staffordshire University One Year Work PlacementAuthor Organisation South Cheshire College

DescriptionTo describe the implementation of the NLN materials into the Learnwise environment within SouthCheshire College and the subsequent testing and use made of these materials by both staff andstudents.

Target Audience Any colleges especially those with the Learnwise (MLE)Keywords NLN Materials, Learnwise, LRNDelivery method/s Includes small groups, classroom, one-to-one, on-line

College background:

South Cheshire College is a large Tertiary college with a diverse curriculum. Within its tertiary remitit is the sole provider of post-16 education in Crewe. In addition, the college complements schoolprovision with a wide portfolio of A level and vocational courses throughout South and EastCheshire areas.

The college has some 3000 full-time students, with a further 7,000-8,000 part-time students basedon the main site and its various centres in the community. Students range from 16 to 80 years inage.

For much of its history Crewe was a town supported by two major employers, British Rail and RollsRoyce Motor Cars. This has changed significantly however over the last 10 years. Crewe hasexperienced a growth in inward investment in recent years, particularly in office and service

industries. The area has also attracted high technology research related activities while retainingits engineering focus.

In February 1999 South Cheshire College was inspected in the second round of FEFC inspections.The formal report, published in late spring 1999, placed the college at the highest level of thoseinspected in the second round, and it was subsequently awarded Accredited College and BeaconCollege status.

Content:The college undertook a pilot study using the Learnwise MLE in June 2001 using an initiativeoffered by Granada Learning to have a 500-user licence on a trial basis. This enabled training tobe established for all staff and limited use by students. The production and possible purchase of

suitable materials was recognised as one of the major tasks.

The college was involved with a number of JISC training and development days with the NWRegional Support Centre and monitored the project initiated to produce materials, which was to beoverseen by Becta/Ferl. The college took the view that it would initially install as much material aspossible into a staff area allowing them to view and use the materials, including testing them withstudents, to see if it should be retained or removed.

To this end thematerials from the NLN website were installed using the bulk download facility and

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then uploaded on to the current version of Learnwise. Staff could then look at these resources toestablish if they were at the correct level for their students and to see if they could be tailored to fitinto their teaching plans.

In Learnwise we have set up an organisation system to mirror the programme areas in college, egCreative and Applied Arts, within this system we have added all of the NLN materials that fit intothat area, these topics would be Art and Design and Hairdressing and the Beauty Therapymaterials.

The materials, which were produced in the first round, followed a simple theme of being self-contained units that would run independently if required. The round 2 and round 3 units are nowfollowing the LRN format much more closely and should fit within a managed environmentseamlessly.

As the MLE has developed the importing of NLN materials has both simplified and improved, withversion 2 of Learnwise building correct menus structures for the NLN materials during the importphase. However an inability to drill down to actual pages within the materials has removed some ofthe flexibility for staff who might only wish to use parts of them. As centres become more aware ofthe LRN standards and how their environment implements them, this ability to use the individualparts of each module will increase. However staff and students have used some of the round 1

materials finding them both supportive and informative.

With the current round being self contained units and their main pages etc all having the samename it is very difficult to amalgamate a number of them into one resource. For example, a tutormight wish to use all the materials on one topic and they will be a list of items that the learner willneed to subscribe to and use. This can be addressed in a couple of ways:

a) if in the future materials follow the LRN standard then staff would be able to pick andchoose parts of a module and they would also be able to merge resources;

b) for current materials in Learnwise they have to be loaded as separate resources but afurther module can be created that can group these together and hence appear as onelearning resource (albeit with a number of subsections) to the learner.

Currently the college has two areas actively using materials; Applied Technology, Mathematics andScience (ATMS) where both Health Studies and Biology students are using materials together withthe English as an Acquired Language (EAL) using some of the basic skills materials. Other areasare currently assessing the materials to see if and how they can be used. For the areas that haveused the materials they have proved a catalyst to the production of in-house materials and theupgrading of current resources.

One negative feedback has been that because the materials have a designated level, which isprominent on the first page, some staff have reported that higher level students who could use thesubjects and gain from the content are reluctant to do so saying that they, for example, are notlevel 1 or possibly level 2 students. Again this can be addressed quite easily if the materials were

to follow the LRN guidelines as then a single picture might be used as a learning resource andindividual pages linked as appropriate and the user need not know the intended level.

On the plus side the sheer amount of materials has given the college and its MLE the necessarykick-start that was necessary to provide staff and students with resources that were available andboth easy and interesting to use. Recently we have been able to view some of the materials thatare currently under development and the college has offered to test materials with groups ofstudents and staff are waiting to try these new products.

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Outcomes:

The main outcome is the fact that the materials have allowed the college to populate its MLE andshow staff what can be achieved and offered to students. The Science areas within college activelycampaigned to have all their relevant materials added and have approximately six groups activelyusing the resources. It has also driven the staff involved to produce new materials or to enhanceexisting materials and move them to the MLE.

The materials and their designs have prompted staff to request help in designing or utilisingdifferent packages and media options to make their own materials more effective.

EAL staff have moved many of their own materials onto the MLE after seeing how the NLNmaterials engaged their students.

Although some areas have quickly taken off the college realise that it will be a slow processespecially if it wishes to have a quality learning resource.

Evaluation:

It is worth considering the responses that we have had from staff in particular with the Science

area:

Generally the standard and style of presentation is very good

More test questions would be an improvement, but those that are included are good and qualityis more important than quantity. I think it is important to keep each package small (as they are) asthis allows more flexibility to lecturers in putting them together and reduces the problem of someparts of a package not being relevant to particular courses. However most of my teaching is atadvanced level AVCE or AS/A level and I look forward to more Biology material appropriate tothese courses.

Here you have the opportunity to reflect upon the case study and suggest ways (if any) in which

you would have done things differently - mentioning weaknesses and strengths.

Recommendations for good practice

Leave one computer logged on and start to download the materials, go away and do some otherwork that needs doing because if you are using the Bulk downloads then you have probably gottime for your lunch break in the time it takes to download all of materials in one course type!!

Contact Details:

Contact name Peter Harding (On-line Learning Co-ordinator)Suzanne Dale

Contact organisation South Cheshire CollegeContact address Dane Bank Ave, Crewe, Cheshire CW2 8ABContact telephone 01270 654659Contact email [email protected]

[email protected] site/s www.s-cheshire.ac.uk

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mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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case studies south cheshire (1)

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