Abingdon and Witney College worked with industry/vocational experts to deliver outstanding teaching, learning, and assessment (OTLA) in programming for robotics and automation and simultaneously upskill college staff in an area of engineering critical to the future of the sector. Selecting a mandatory, externally assessed BTEC engineering unit which required programming expertise outside of that held by the college’s engineering and computing staff, the project paired an industry expert and a teacher to co-deliver the programming elements of the BTEC unit. They were an electrical engineer, with no programming experience, with a computing graduate from Oxford Brookes University, with programming expertise but no knowledge of robotics engineering or pedagogy. Learners responded positively to the approach.
Project partners were: Active Robots Ltd, B2EX, Basingstoke College of Technology, Cutting Edge Solutions Ltd, Haas Automation Ltd, JSP Ltd, Oxford Brookes University, Solihull College and University Centre, West Thames College.
This case study includes tips for success, and the downloads folder contains a teaching guide designed to help other providers deliver outstanding teaching, learning and assessment, in a collaborative teaching setting. The key takeaway from this project is that it is possible to upskill within a classroom setting, but it requires additional planning and preparation time. However, this was less than the time for formal continuing professional development.
The teaching guide, in the downloads folder below, contains follow-up contact details.
Accessibility note: The 16-page case study and 13-page teaching guide documents are PDFs. Unfortunately, neither was constructed to be accessible by blind or partially sighted people who use screen readers or voice over. The ETF has therefore produced MP3 audio versions of both documents as an alternate format. Please also be aware that the Robo Expo video referred to in both documents does not have a continuous soundtrack, audio descriptions or a transcript, and relies on automated YouTube subtitles, which are inaccurate and mean the video is inaccessible to many blind and partially sighted people and D/deaf people. The ETF does not have the necessary permissions to edit these.
