careerFOCUS A world of opportunities
The Sheffield College, a SET Corporate Partner, has taken learning from a Finnish college and created an Innovation Centre to support staff teaching and development. inTuition invited the college to share its experiences. By Steven Spence
Back in April 2016 I was lucky enough to visit a college in Finland, which had a profound impact on how I would approach staff development from that point on. Firstly, there was a clear culture that underpinned
Steven Spence is teaching and learning innovator at The
Sheffield College, which is a SET Corporate Partner. Steven is doing a Professional Doctorate in education at the University of Central Lancashire.
the value of giving staff the opportunities to engage in meaningful development. Secondly, the investment in space enabled development, curiosity and enquiry to become endemic in the college. These principles have been fundamental to my vision at The Sheffield College in creating a culture based on pedagogical enquiry and using research to create professional autonomy. It has led to investment in the Innovation Centre, a purpose-built space for staff to have access to excellent training, to collaborate with peers across the organisation, and to take risks when teaching. The Innovation Centre has the latest technologies, including interactive screens, virtual reality (VR) headsets, a 360-degree camera, Chromebooks and laptops. There are writeable walls and tables, enabling staff to be creative and to enhance staff and student engagement. The centre is one large space, with other areas each designed for a specific purpose. These include: the Inspire room, a room that encourages collaboration; the Develop room, which is the home of the Learning and Development Coaches and is used for pedagogical discussion and coaching; and the
CASE STUDY LETTING STUDENTS LEARN IN NEW WAYS
Charlotte Bowling is a learning development coach at The Sheffield College.
I have used the Innovation Centre to let students access a virtual reality walk through a rainforest, to
help them develop ideas for a writing task in line with the GCSE English assessment objectives. The students used the glass boards to share their ideas, words and techniques they’d thought of during the VR experience. They then used laptops to begin developing a sensory description based on the VR and ideas board. Access to technology creates a new dynamic as students are
able to learn in a new way. Many asked to use the innovation suite again as they found it easier to access the content and the material was more engaging than what they would experience in a classroom.
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Thinking room, where staff can work independently with no distractions. Following its launch in September 2019, the impact is tangible and the Innovation Centre has placed teaching, learning and innovation at the heart of the organisation. Teachers from a range of subject areas used the space. For example: the science department uses the writeable tables and screens when teaching chemistry; the English team uses the VR headsets to engage students in creative writing, while the sports team uses VR to take students inside the human body. In addition, collaborative meetings between staff have become the norm in one of the breakout spaces, and the digital team have supported the huge advancements in the use and impact of digital technology through targeted development sessions. Finally, and inspired by the experiences gained in Finland, the Thinking room has soared in popularity with staff. This room is specifically designed to give staff the space to get into what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi would term ‘flow’ – a space for concentration and productivity with no distractions, something that proves difficult in other spaces such as the staffroom. While the Innovation Centre is first and foremost for staff, students also reap the benefits of learning in such an environment. David Price (2013) correctly points out the discrepancy between how students engage in learning at an educational institution – a formal setting – as opposed to how they engage in learning informally. The Innovation Centre enables students to flourish in a space that is fully inclusive and adaptive, and encourages collaboration, but also respects
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