Lincoln College lecturers awarded for teaching excellence

A pair of exceptional Lincoln College lecturers have been awarded for their work on ‘contemporary teaching techniques’ after seeing through a £45,000 project.

Peter Jackson and Paul Barnes were presented with prestigious accolades by David Russell, CEO of The Education & Training Foundation during the Learning Consortium Conference at the British Library in London.

It was in recognition of a project they’ve been working on for the last six months examining how to increase the confidence of teaching staff in their use of contemporary teaching techniques, including Information and Learning Technology (ILT).

In 2014 the pair submitted a bid to EMFEC (East Midlands Further Education Council), in partnership with Children’s Links and the Linkage Community Trust, and were awarded £45,000 to fund the project.

Peter and Paul, who are both advanced practitioners, will now be using their findings to further enhance quality teaching and learning across the college during the next academic year.

They have also been invited to present their findings to other national organisations within the sector including Ofsted.

Peter, who is a lecturer in automotive engineering, said: “Working with a core team of construction and engineering lecturers at Lincoln College we investigated how we could best help them overcome their lack of confidence in particular when using new technology.

“This led us to investigate the use of QR codes and Blendspace – a piece of software designed to help teachers create digital lessons – which both significantly increased the use of ILT by lecturers and students, who were also keen to get involved.

“We’ve also shared our findings with the RAF, Nottingham Trent University and EMFEC and we’re delighted to say the project has also had a major impact on teaching and learning in their organisations. In addition we’ve received a further £15,000 to continue our research.”

Paul, who is a lecturer in carpentry and joinery, added: “The success of the project has been phenomenal. We discovered that using QR codes in the classroom to signpost students to online tutorials and other teaching materials has enhanced and deepened the students’ learning experience.

“We’ve also used Blendspace to get learning happening out of the classroom. Because the software is cloud-based, students can watch the lessons created by their lecturers whenever, wherever to prepare in advance for their actual lessons or revise for exams.”