Study Supporters
An ETF funded OTLA Digital project
Together we can do anything.
What we've been doing and why.
Our project is designed to explore the impact of ‘digital home study support’ on the confidence and performance of learners on our English and maths programmes. Strategies to improve engagement and enhance the quality of the learning experience on these programmes are proving to be successful, however, tutors continue to report that learners can be reluctant to take responsibility for their learning and continue with their studies at home. Our initial research indicated that it is widely recognised that parental involvement/ engagement can impact significantly on learner motivation, aspirations and achievement. Consequently, we decided to explore ways of engaging parents and carers in an effort to take learning beyond the classroom.
There are now two strands to the project.
- Supporting the needs of 16-18 year olds working towards either their GCSE or Functional Skills English and maths qualifications within a college.
- Exploring ways in which we can help female prisoners engage more fully with their children’s English and maths development, encouraging them to do the best that they can while building their own confidence and skills in these areas.
Trialling the use of Instagram
We trialled Instagram with 2 GCSE English classes over the last 3/4 months.
This stage has proved tremendously valuable. Feedback from students has helped us to
adapt content specifically to meet their needs and devise guidelines for the set up and use of the site, all of which has helped us to design the parent and carer site more carefully.
Students quickly engaged with the project, asking for additional materials such as more tutorial videos to help with tricky areas etc and tutors found that quieter students have been
particularly motivated as it has allowed them to ask questions and gain support when they
might not have been confident enough to do so in person. As a result of having interacted online with the class materials and the teacher/classmates beforehand some of these
students became more confident in the classroom. We feel that this aspect is particularly
important to share with the parent/carer group.
Tutors used the sites in lots of different ways e.g. :
- To post short 'Top Tips' videos on how to do something they were having difficulty with.
- To remind about homework/ flag flipped learning tasks/ signpost to additional work.
- To have a dialogue with students outside of the lesson.
- To post inspirational comments and quotes.
- To remind students of important dates and deadlines.
- To provide revision/extension tasks.
- To promote competition and engagement in the class e.g. posting a quote – the first person
to find me and tell me where this quote is from wins a prize.
Tutors said:
- ‘the additional stretch and challenge tasks worked well as students asked for more of these on the run up to the exam… the supportive dialogue worked well, especially for students with additional needs.’
- ‘The videos of annotating an extract worked very well with my students, a large number said that they had used these at home to help them begin annotating.’
Other lessons learned:
· The ‘Top Tips’ videos e.g. ‘3 ways to improve your creative writing’ were also very much appreciated. We are in the process of developing these further to build parental confidence in how to use apostrophes etc as well as advice for parents and carers on how they can help students complete homework effectively.
‘Students can post a #shelfie of their book shelves/working space to the site and share tips on how they work best at home.’
· Although posting was relatively quick and easy tutors have agreed that it needs to be done regularly, ‘keep your followers “warm”. People tend to unfollow sites that have not posted even for a few days,’ especially at the beginning to get everyone in the habit of using the app. We chose Instagram as students were used to it and used it more than Facebook. We will need to reinforce its use with parents and carers as they might not be as familiar with the tool.
Pre-loading material is useful, ‘we are planning to have some “teasers” available for our induction activities : Fear fest, escape room and murder mystery tasks,’ having a schedule of posts will help as well.
· Tutors posted before the session when planning which helped with flipped learning and after the lesson when they had identified issues which needed more attention or to summarise key concepts. One tutor also got students to make videos in the lesson,
‘We just filmed their books/work and often their hands whilst they talked through a problem or explained something they had understood very well. They liked to do this in pairs/threes as they got quite camera shy on their own!’ and we feel that this approach could also be utilized with the parents who may be able to answer queries on line for the rest of the group.'
· Tutors have learnt a lot about Instagram properties, but are still learning and recognize that what works with one group won’t necessarily work with them all, e.g. one tutor noted
‘We can reach the students by stealth using the “stories” function. If you post a short video here, it will automatically pop up on their feed as they scroll through the rest of their posts almost like advertising your subject. Some students told me they thought it was “so cringey” but they didn’t “unfollow” the site and they talked about the posts so something must have gone in!’
Other achievements so far
We have set up Instagram accounts for parents/carers and students and started to pre-populate with materials.
We have booked in a ‘parent/carer’ event for September to introduce the project and how to get the most out of it.
We have scripted and are in the process of filming a short talking heads video which can be accessed via students or via a link. This video will include a teacher and a parent talking about what they have gained from working with each other.
We have created resources to encourage ‘parental’ interest in the project.
Novus have been busy as well.
They have held a focus group with some of the residents to gauge interest in the project.
They have identified a strategy and the software to help mothers in prison engage with their children’s learning more. The idea is to work with mums and kids to create a joint story which will be turned into an e-book which can be accessed through a website/ downloaded to a smart phone by the child at home.
- They have created a prototype book which will then be turned into an e-book.
Extracts from the e-book
Our hopes for the project...
Over the next few weeks we hope to have the following well underway:
· Videos and promo materials sent to parent/carers.
· 'Parents’ evening planned and ready for delivery.
· Induction week materials posted and schedule of resources etc planned until the end of term.
· Maths and English initial assessment carried out in first weeks and then repeated at the end of November to focus on progress measures and impact in specific areas.
· Schedule of family day visits organised and a way to share the e-book with children.
We'd love to hear from anyone who has any suggestions for us or may be interested in collaborating.
Sharing what we've learned:
Final project findings...
The project was designed to explore:
1) the impact of ‘digital home study support’ on the confidence and performance of learners on College English and maths programmes and
2) the mothers of children in the secure state.
Existing strategies to improve engagement and enhance the quality of the learning experience on these programmes was successful, however, tutors continued to report that learners were reluctant to take responsibility for their learning and continue with their studies at home. In the secure state, the parents we worked with were experiencing increasing difficulty in trying to keep up to date with what their children were doing in school, which in turn made visits and maintaining positive family relationships much harder.
Initial research indicated that it is widely recognised that parental involvement/ engagement can impact significantly on learner motivation, aspirations and achievement. Consequently, we decided to explore ways of engaging parents and carers in an effort to take learning beyond the classroom and further develop students’ attitude, skills and confidence in their English and maths learning and improve family relationships in the secure state.
What were our project findings?
Summary of the learning from the Newcastle College strand:
use the digital platform the students are most comfortable accessing and using, and ensure they have input on the choice of platform to use
students don’t always want their parents involved in supporting their college studies!
timing is vital – the sense of urgency and engagement levels for students are influenced greatly by the timing of the activity
Summary of the learning from the Low Newton / NOVUS strand:
it would be good practice to create a family learning strategy within HMP YOI Low Newton and promote family learning activities
not having involvement in their child’s education can negatively impact on family relationships for all
we would like to learn more from existing family learning projects and what makes them successful
Evidence of improved collaboration and changes in organisational practices:
· Collaboration with teaching colleagues – when students are working with more than one teacher, the Instagram site provides a clear overview of what has been covered and how this was done for new teachers / courses
· Use of a wider range of digital platforms in education, and a positive attitude towards doing so
Evidence of improvement in learners’ achievements, retention and progression.
Newcastle College:
Direct comparison of group achievement, retention and progression cannot take place as the teaching staff were not working with a sufficient number of groups to have a number of control groups to compare. However, when exploring the results for the more prolific users of the Instagram site, there was a noticeable increase in higher exam grades (A-C) than would normally be observed in similar cohorts. Two students started the course with a grade ‘3’ from school, then achieved a grade ‘7’ after being involved in the project. As our students are GCSE re-sitters, and have often already had numerous failed attempts at gaining a good grade, we believe that this innovative approach did have an impact on their skills and knowledge development and improved self-confidence. However, we are aware that Instagram is not the only factor that would have had a positive impact on learning and higher exam grades, and more research would be required to fully explore impact.
Low Newton:
Anecdotal evidence from staff and participants is positive, but due to the time taken to agree policies and procedures, it is too early to assess any improvement in achievement, retention and progression.