A blended approach to Basic skills initial assessment
A specialist team at Coleg Llandrillo has developed
an innovative assessment and blended learning programme - using learndirect's online courses to support basic skills needs across the college curriculum. Stephen Bowkley, learndirect Partnership Manager at Coleg Llandrillo
Introducing a tailored online assessment tool to diagnose students' skills gaps, and using online basic skills courses through learndirect to deliver the necessary training, the project pulls together a variety of ICT resources and various tutors to improve efficiency and quality in basic skills support and provision throughout the college.
Vaughan Williams, Basic Skills Co-ordinator at Coleg Llandrillo said: “There was room for improvement in our approach to basic skills assessment and support. The system in place used national paper-based standard tests and was very labour-intensive for tutors with papers being marked manually. More than 2000 students from curriculum areas across the college showed basic skills needs after completing the tests in 2003 and it became clear we needed to tackle the issue to make the process more manageable and efficient across the board.
“By developing an online initial assessment for students, we immediately felt the benefit of instant marking, with all information linked directly to the Colleges Virtual Learning Environment.
“When students are identified with a basic skills need, we refer them to the learndirect database of basic skills courses. Personal tutors work with students to build individual learning programmes, combining paper-based lesson plans with learndirect courses to offer a blended learning experience.”
learndirect Partnership Manager for Coleg Llandrillo, Stephen Bowkley said: “With so many students requiring some form of basic skills tuition, we needed a distributive form of learning and online learning is a convenient
and effective way of rolling out structured learning to a mass audience. Combined with tutor support, this has proved to be an excellent way to tackle skills gaps across the curriculum.”
“ learndirect offer a wide range of high-quality Skills for Life courses. Many learndirect courses are linked to nationally recognised qualifications so we hope to eventually progress learners on to tests and enable every individual to leave with
a qualification.”
Head of Ufi Cymru, Jeff Greenidge said: “The innovative work that has been done at Coleg Llandrillo to tackle basic skills assessment and support across the curriculum is worthy of praise. Through a team-led approach, teaching staff have created and implemented a successful blended learning programme for students across the curriculum.
“We are obviously pleased this programme encourages learners to use learndirect ‘Skills for Life' material to address their needs, and the comprehensive programme that has been implemented at Coleg Llandrillo should be highlighted as a model of good practice.”
