A joint Erasmus funding bid between Forth Valley College and South Eastern Regional College (SERC), and educational institutions from four other European countries, has proved to be successful.
The project – titled ‘Innovative Digital Education and Skills’ (IDEAS) - will bring in approximately £50k to the College to help develop a mini-qualification training course offering bite-sized modules, that will be flexible and adapted to individual professional development needs of teaching staff.
Four other partners from Denmark, Portugal, Malta and England will team up with FVC and SERC for a two years to develop IDEAS.
It is hoped the 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 deliverables that will include:
- The development of a 30-hour digital teacher training course
- Use 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
- Use a personalised micro-credentialed training package with support from 16 IDEAS Mentors (80 teachers)
- Provide opportunities for staff mobility and a country multiplier event, where colleagues and peers can share training and knowledge with key stakeholders.
Helen Young, Head of Learning and Quality, 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.”