Having recently attended a 2 day conference in Birmingham on ‘Student Employability’ I am fully aware of the needs to embed Key skills such a numeracy and literacy within the curriculum that is being developed for the BTEC National Diploma course. The key issues that employers raised was that skills such as communication, team work, problem solving were more highly rated than technical knowledge or specific subject knowledge.
The Government initiated Key skills stage 1,2 and 3 and offers financial incentives to schools and colleges for delivery within their curriculum.
At Wakefield College key skills is timetabled for all 14-19 year old full time courses and students sign a contract agreeing to attend as part of their course. The aim is to ensure all students have the basic skills in literacy and numeracy when they leave college in order they are able to fulfil their role in society. “Educational failure is underpinned by poor reading and lies at the heart of social exclusion” (Bynner, 2002)
Evaluation of curriculum development
Once a curriculum has been developed it is of utmost importance to evaluate it’s success.
One of the main ways is to analyse performance figures to determine if they meet their targets by checking if the assessment results are satisfactory. Another useful way is to reflect at end of each session as to what worked well and what could do with further development. On a personal note this is not always easy as invariably as soon as one lesson has finished another starts, often on a completely different subject matter, and by the time the an opportunity to reflect and tweak the work arises the issues are no longer fresh in the mind.
Wakefield College provides provision for both FE and HE however as I am mainly involved in the FE sector this is where the focus of the curriculum development lies. One of the key aims on the BTEC course is to offer all students on the course the opportunity to realise their potential which often presents a great challenge especially in this day of high expectations as is substantiated by Light (2002) who claims “We demand greater flexibility and imagination in educating for the future and want our students to develop learning skills and the ability to transfer what is learned to new and more complex situations”
In line with the college’s mission statement and as Personal Tutor to students on the Business and Technology Education Council (BTEC) National Diploma Information Technology Practitioners (ITP) course I am in the process of developing the curriculum for delivery these 17-22 year old students. Vocational courses are a relatively new government initiative and offer post 16 year olds and alternative to A and As level qualification in specific subjects such as science, arts etc that are taken by the majority of school sixth form students. The vocational qualification is viewed as more practical and work related. “The emphasis is on the application of knowledge to realistic business or working environments rather than purely on understanding theoretical concepts” (Abbott and Huddlestone, 1995, p6)
The BTEC students are timetabled with me for the integrated vocational award in business IT project and database management systems (DBMS) are on their second year having already achieved passes in the 8 units that were delivered on the first year. They have now to complete a further 8 units. The 2 units I am currently developing, run over 16 weeks, the one 3 hour and one 2 hour session per each week, comprise of lectures, practical exercises and assignment work. As this is a new course at Wakefield College I will have the opportunity to see first hand how well the curriculum delivered and the assessment tools deployed, are taken on board throughout the learning process. In the early stages the focus is on delivery of learning materials whereas the latter part of the semester concentrates on assessments which are initially very specific and quantifiable and measure lower cognitive skills however as students progress, assessment is more concerning evaluation and critical analysis therefore assessing the higher cognitive skills.
The content of units are designed to meet the requirements of the unit 9 and unit 13 Edexcel specification as shown in appendix A. The content covers all the topics listed in the indicative content and is mainly found in books and journal and brought together in hand outs and PowerPoints and activities. “The content is designed to address the reasons identified for developing the curriculum in the first place.” (Anon 1, 2000)
Teaching and learning strategies
The teaching and learning methods used are varied and are listed in the scheme of work as shown in Appendix B. The scheme of work also clearly states the structure of the course with start time and hand in and out dates for assignments. The curriculum also incorporates the use of the Internet, books and journals for research and software applications for both development of information systems and communications as well as for reporting on the practical elements of the course and evaluating their outcomes. Group work and discussion is also an integral part of the curriculum. The main approach to content delivery is via lesson planning see Appendix C, PowerPoint presentations see Appendix E, and Course handouts see Appendix F
Assessment strategies
There is a clear outline of assessment strategies that are mapped to the learning outcomes. I have written the assignments in line with the awarding body learning outcomes/objectives as shown in Appendix G. The chosen assessment methods are made up of practical assessment, assignments based on a case study, reports, presentations and research papers. It is also important to track the work of students and for this I always have an electronic copy of an assignment-tracking sheet see Appendix H.
Resources
The resources within the college include computers in computer rooms, Smart boards and appropriate software. Most staff teaching on the course are well trained and highly qualified although due to staff sickness and turnover there are times when the level of expertise is lacking in certain areas.
Evaluation
The effectiveness of the curriculum will be monitored by continually tracking the progress of the students see the tracking documents in Appendix H and also by the records of achievement compared over a period of time. As this is the first time the course has been delivered there is no historic data to compare previous years success, however there will be bench marking undertaken with other FE colleges and schools. Secondly as personal tutor I am responsible for tracking how well targets are met throughout the year and at three specific milestones individual learning plans (ILP) are completed with students to discuss their progression. These statistics are then aggregated and forwarded to the team leader for college wide collation and circulation. These milestones are set to monitor attendance, punctuality, achievements and progression.
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