Hairdressers take to Instagram to ‘brush’ up on their practical lessons

@BordersCollege Level 3 Hairdressing students have used some improvisation and taken to social media to help facilitate their learning and develop their practical skills.

With the College Salon closed and the absence of their normal practical lessons, staff and students have pulled together to source and utilise a number of hair-related demonstration videos, which the students have benefited greatly from.

Through Instagram, the class found a number of excellent videos and they were able to interact with many of the stylists, through live sessions. A number of famous hair educators were also providing lessons, free of charge. These included Heather Robertson https://bit.ly/3cmDI8E, Patrick Cameron https://bit.ly/3aie7uE, and Edward Hemmings https://bit.ly/3pvydYX.

Using a practical activity can help structure a lesson and improve engagement and knowledge retention, and the videos contributed to the student experience in many ways.

Students who had commitments, such as homeschooling, were able to access the videos at a more convenient time of the day.

Once the practical sessions were complete, discussions on new techniques took place over class Teams meetings, giving the students the chance to talk about and showcase their work.

Lecturer Dianne Kiore commented:

“This has been a very challenging time for us as lecturers and also for our learners. Hairdressing education in isolation has been a great advantage to us in terms of demonstrations that the students would have been receiving in College.

 “The live sessions are very interactive and some of the students, who are fortunate to have dolls heads, can practice alongside the demonstrations. If they have been pre-recorded it allows us to make up worksheets for the students to complete to help them retain the information required for future practical assessments.”

Another great example of some innovative learning going on at Borders College!