Membership of eednet is playing a major role in Highlands College’s goal to become recognized as a centre of excellence for practical and vocational education. In support of this aim, the senior management team of the College has introduced a year long cross-college project – ‘How to Teach Vocational Education’, based around the CRL publication. All college staff with a role in teaching or supporting student learning have been encouraged to review their practice and become ‘learners of their own teaching’ by undertaking a small scale action research project in their classrooms, laboratories, or workshops. The project was formally launched at Highlands in September 2013 with over 100 staff attending, which included nearly all the full time lecturers. In a follow up meeting in October over 60 staff attended an AR2 style workshop to discuss their action plans with the CRL team. Some of the expansive habits of mind that staff want their students to develop include resourcefulness, self-confidence and real world problem solving and they are using approaches such as peer learning, flipped classroom and self-assessment to achieve this.
School or college membership of eednet is increasingly valued as a way of fostering an institution-wide approach to educational innovation, as senior leaders see the benefits of encouraging staff collaboration for change, not only within but also across curriculum areas.
For more information about Highlands College see http://www.highlands.ac.uk/
eedNET Resource Bank 