At the crossroads: Progression Routes

We looked at the course descriptions in our College prospectuses, and talked to the learning services staff for information on progression routes. Our updated propsectus details some information about possible progression routes from Foundation Degrees. The learning services staff give individual help for learners as required and use a variety of methods to give help and advice, but nothing is documented or given out as standard for all learners.

Capturing Attendance

At the last project meeting we discussed the possibility of capturing attendance data from the relevant partner Colleges and adding this to the data stored in the Support Point.

I have just spoken with the MIS person at Shrewsbury College and he says that this is possible to save this data as a CSV file so we can upload the data regularly into the Support Point so that Mentors and Managers can see the specific data on their learners/employees with regards their attendance.

Some points to mention:

The attendance data is stored on our MIS at Shrewsbury, but it is stored as week numbers rather than dates. We are moving to a new version of Eclipse (MIS system), and we are hoping that it may then be stored by date. The attendance field is captured information direct from the online web registers and this could then be transfered into the Support Point. We are not sure how up to date the register attendance information will be as we are behind on some of our registers and the attendance records may not be as up date as we may need.

The Bloggers are back in Town!

Following last week's meeting we have been catching up with some actions.

We have rated both the Manager and Mentor sections of the Support Point and given explanations to our rated scores. I made contact with the MIS department to see if we could obtain attendance records for the Foundation Degree in Construction at the College. The person I need to speak to is away on holiday so I have set up a meeting to see if this is possible. We are confident that this is achievable.

We tried to set up another meeting for the learner's to evaluate the forum area of the Support Point but unfortunately they finished in early May and will not be returning for the next academic year until September. We have arranged a meeting with the tutor on the Foundation Degree course to discuss his common pattern of targetting groups. This is set for this week and we will summarise the outcomes of this meeting in the next blog.

We looked at the delivery of course information at Shrewsbury College and have provide the relevant URL for the FD course in Construction. I am not sure if the link will change when updates are made to the site, but for the time being it seems to be consistent.

Testing the system with the learners

Today we introduced the support point to 5 of the 6 Construction FD learners and got them to access the support point and sign in using their Staffs Uni username and password details.

On the whole it worked fine and the learners managed to log in to the system and updated their user details and worked through all the areas of the system. They all sent the learner registration number to their employer so he can check their progress on their FD course.

We asked the learners to go through the system and feedback their comments to their tutor so we can see what they like or what they would like to see added as support for WBLs on FD courses.

We will repeat the process for the missing learner and report back any progress on the next blog post!

Pinning down the Employer!

On Thursday 20th March, we visited the Employer (a local architect with learners on the Construction Foundation Degree) to register and use the Support Point. The tutor on the FD course came along to observe the process with Fleur.

We gave the employer an introduction to the project and a project leaflet of what we are trying to achieve. We asked what support he was getting at present and he mentioned that over the last couple of years he has gained more communication with Shrewsbury College. He is keen to be involved with the College and the progress that his employees are making and is very happy to assist in any way he can. He gains regular feedback via the course tutor (a combination of face-to-face, emails and phone

There is a mentor system in place for all junior employees at the company. This is not a formal process.

To save some time in advance of the meeting we had already created a Life Ray account, just needing the employer to register on the Support Point. The process went well and the employer seemed interested in what was available and welcomed what the project was trying to achieve.

Next steps are to register the learners on the FD Award to the Support Point and evaluate the process. This is to be set up with the tutor after the Easter break.

Blogging any minute now

More ratings and rantings

Just finished rating the tutor bit of Wetpaint. We think we're reasonably consistent with other views but we are being much gentler with priority 1's in an attempt to not overload the technical team. It does seem that there are far too many 1's coming through from others that might not get the chance to be developed.