A case study exploring a project that aimed to engage vocational 16-19 year old students by incoporating widely available, free online tools into strategies designed to encourage students to become enthusiastic independent learners, ready for work or progression.
Advanced practitioner support helped each tutor to plan the introduction of new activities according to student profile. For example, relevant YouTube videos were used to acquire and practice difficult techniques, research the implications of materials used before starting practical work and to find real world examples to test and justify their decisions enabling the tutor to develop a facilitative role channelling each learner’s interests.
Course leaders in hospitality and catering strongly linked the development of practice using free online tools with improved student retention, punctuality and attendance after introduction. Other areas also experienced positive results with higher performance expected across all groups by the end of the year. The Head of Learning for cultural and creative industries attributed the success to increased organisation and accessibility of key support documents being in one place online.
OTLA