Forth Valley College secures £50,000 of funding
A project to develop new teacher training courses with “bite sized modules” at Forth Valley College (FVC) was given a boost after it received £50,000 of funding.
FVC and the South Eastern Regional College (SERC), along with well educational institutions from four European countries, made the successful joint bid for funding from Erasmus – the European Union programme for education, training, youth and sport – to pay for the Innovative Digital Education and Skills (IDEAS) project.
This will allow the college to develop a mini-qualification training course that will be flexible and adapted to individual professional development needs of teaching staff.
Now teaching staff from FVC and SERC will team up with colleagues in Denmark, Portugal, Malta and England for the next two years to develop the IDEAS project.
It is hoped this innovative “Community of Practice” will allow teachers from across Europe to communicate, share best practices and help to raise teacher digital
competence and skills thereby, preparing them for virtual/online/blended teaching, learning and assessment strategies in a post COVID-19 environment.
The money will help fund an additional staff resource on a fractional post to manage the project, and contribute towards the other costs.
There include the development of a 30-hour digital teacher training course, adoption of adaptive learning models which will enable 64 teachers from any curricular area of FE or HE in the four countries, to improve their digital competence and skills and the introduction of a personalised micro-credentialed training package with support from 16 IDEAS mentors.
The cash will also help provide opportunities for staff mobility and a country multiplier event, where colleagues and peers can share training and knowledge with key
stakeholders.
FVC head of learning and quality Helen Young said: “This project is fully aligned with our learning and digital skills ambition to develop the confidence of all teaching staff in the appropriate and effective application of digital pedagogy – and use of digital technology to support learning and teaching, maximising the student
experience.
"This is going to be a great opportunity for the college and we are looking forward to building relationships with our partners and developing the project.”