College Development Network presses play on training videos

A series of training videos is being released to help college lecturers and support staff further develop their skills with topics including behaviour management, project based learning, neurodiversity, and sustainability.

College Development Network (CDN), which helps further education institutions to train their workforce, is producing the six-minute “mini bites” in response to requests from its workforce survey.

More than 1,800 lecturers and support staff replied to the survey, representing some 16% of the 11,000 professionals working at Scotland’s 26 colleges, with respondents identifying 15 topics for which they wanted further training.

CDN is now producing 20 of the “mini bites”, with some topics covered separately for teaching staff and professional services staff.

The first three of those videos are being released on Thursday, including “Education for sustainable development: delivering a green curriculum”, “Principles and strategies for behaviour management”, and “Supporting neurodiverse learners”.

Jonny Rees, Head of Professional Development at CDN, said:

“Millions of people watch YouTube videos to learn new skills, from programming their central heating to playing an acoustic guitar – and we want training for education professionals to become just as accessible.

“Our workforce survey revealed that the biggest hurdles holding back training are a lack of financial resources for colleges in addition to a lack of time for lecturers and support staff.

“That’s why we’ve made these videos six minutes in length – they’re long enough to contain the information that viewers need but short enough that they can be watched anywhere at any time, whether it’s at a desk in between lessons or meetings, or on the bus going to or from college.

“Producing these mini bites will allow CDN and our college partners to reach far larger numbers of staff than we could by delivering face-to-face training, whether that’s in person or online, and will ultimately benefit students.”

Mr Rees added: “These videos have been developed by practitioners who are at the coalface – they’re living and breathing these topics, day in, day out.

“Each mini bite and its accompanying factsheet are being produced with a consistent look and feel, which will help lecturers and support staff to dip in and out of the series.

“Viewers will be able to watch them as many times as they want, skipping and rewinding, just as you would do with a YouTube video when you’re wanting to learn a new skill.

“Delivering these sessions in the form of videos will also extend the training materials’ shelf life, allowing them to be used over the coming years, and delivering better value for money for taxpayers.”

The videos are designed to fit into each college’s wider professional development programme, with some institutions likely to send links to lecturers and support staff to watch individually, while others may incorporate them into training sessions.

The mini bites fit into CDN’s wider action research covering professional learning.

The action research, which is running between now and February, is designed to help colleges to learn lessons from one another and to increase collaboration across the sector with impactful professional learning at the centre.