Excellence Gateway
This case study was produced by JISC RSC (Regional Support Centres) South West on behalf of the Excellence Gateway.
Sector relevance: Adult and community learning, family learning, voluntary and community learning
Keywords: Adult learners, disaffected learners, partnership/collaborative working, learner support, ILT services, preparing for work, quality improvement, management of resources, virtual learning environment, Moodle software
This case study looks at the benefits for adult learners, which have been achieved through the co-operation of four local authorities who have combined forces to provide a virtual learning environment for their adult learners.
The Bristol Learning Communities Team is part of the Children and Young People's Directorate of Bristol City Council. It is funded by the West of England Learning and Skills Council to target learners who have taken little part in formal learning since leaving school. The overall purpose is to engage adults over the age of 19 in first step learning, and to support them to progress to either further learning, work or volunteering. The team works closely with hundreds of local partner agencies and providers, and also trains and employs local learning champions to engage and motivate other residents.
To engage adults without five GCSEs at A-C grade in education and to help them progress.
Four local authorities joined forces to bring the benefits of electronic learning materials to adults in their areas. Bristol City, South Gloucestershire, North Somerset and Bath and North East Somerset councils decided to link-up to offer a virtual learning environment that they felt would serve the needs of their disparate populations. This was called the West of England Community Learning Platform. It now offers a Moodle site with access by clear, bright electronic buttons. This contains a variety of learning materials for tutors to share and learners to use.
Jane Taylor, the strategy leader, says they had to find something that would adapt to the needs of the short courses they run and that would engage and motivate the adults they were targeting, all of whom lacked the equivalent of five GCSEs. “It’s been very easy”, she said.
A grant of £20,000 towards new equipment, which they won last year from the organisation set-up to encourage more and different adults to engage in learning of all kinds (i.e. the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education), has enabled them to offer quality teaching materials throughout the area. They have purchased smart boards, Apple Mac computers, wireless printers and camcorders.
One of the most successful courses they have run using this equipment was a project to recycle bicycles in the Hartcliffe area of Bristol. The aim was to find a project that would unite children and adults in a common objective. The idea for a bike club came from the parents and children at Teyfant Community School. They wanted a course on recycling bikes and road safety. There were was an abundance of broken and worn bicycles which could be repaired or used for parts. They embarked on a course for six people. 15 turned up for the weekly hour-long session.
They then asked for an after-school club and came with their children. The community police participated and they forged links with an engineering college. The computer equipment allowed them access to learning resources from all sorts of venues at any time.
They found the club could be self-financing and continued after the five-week course finished. It is now running independently. One of the fathers then embarked on a Youth and Community Training course.
Sounds, Stories and Music was another workshop set-up for parents and children from Bridge Farm Primary School in Bristol. “Parents who had never used computers before quickly picked up how to produce drum beats and melody tracks”, said Vin Callan, one of the development workers. “They then taught the children”. He says that the course went “wow” for him when one small boy said a sound reminded him of an alien waking up to an alarm and the alien didn’t know where he was. The whole group then wrote a story around this with songs.
This project has led to other courses on soundscapes and an exhibition of the work took place in March 2008 in Bristol’s prestigious Colston Hall, including photographs the learners had taken printed on voile and canvas.
Vin says, “The whole project says to previously disenfranchised learners ‘we really value you’. They haven’t just been given a battered old textbook but quality materials. It lures people towards IT. Some of the adults have now become learning champions for us and will spread the word.”
Jane Taylor says they had no experience of anything like this and that the support offered by the RSC in the region had been invaluable in helping them make crucial choices. “We didn’t have the knowledge, experience or time to do all the research on our own”, she says. “The RSC helped by showing options, costs and solutions used by other organisations. We are two years down the line and we can see there is benefit if we give them a top-quality learning experience.”
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