Introduction

Journey in HE:Shared responsibility, shared resources

Phil PooleDirector of Learning and Teaching

Programme ManagerPersonal Learning Portal Pilot

Programme

• JISC Distributed e-Learning Regional Pilots• What is PLPP? • Perspectives on supporting widening

participation• The role of Learning Technology: workshops• Emerging issues: A proposal for future

collaboration

JISC Distributed e-Learning Regional Pilots

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/pilotsdetail.html

(Kent) Personal Learning Portal Programme (PLPP)

The partners

Canterbury Christ Church UniversityAimHigher University of KentOxford Brookes UniversitySouth Kent College(University of Greenwich)

Personal Learning Portal Programme (PLPP)

A challenge

Widening participation has accentuated the differences that students have always exhibited when faced with particular modes of learning and assessment. For the uninitiated, or perhaps non-traditional HE entrants, mature students, minority ethnic groups or different cultural backgrounds, the learning context [in HE] can be a barrier to them demonstrating achievement.

Personal Learning Portal Programme (PLPP)

Emerging issues

Those significantly more likely to leave said that they were concerned about:

• a lack of staff support• their ability to learn independently • problems with the academic level of their

studies (more than indicating problems with workload)

Cooke, A (2004)Heading them off at the pass: predicting retention problems University of Ulster

Emerging issues

• Those who declared themselves to be unprepared were more likely to leave than those who did not.

• The maxim “If you fail to prepare, then you prepare to fail” appears to be as true of learners as it is of teachers.

Cooke, A (2004)Heading them off at the pass: predicting retention problems University of Ulster

Emerging issues

• What does it mean?:• Incoming students are extremely ill-informed about

what they are about to experience. This does not relate to the curriculum so much as to how they are expected to work and interact, particularly with staff.

• we should all aspire to produce students who think and learn independently, we can no longer assume that they will arrive already able to do so.

Cooke, A (2004)Heading them off at the pass: predicting retention problems University of Ulster

PLPP Extension 2006-07

Complete the development of an illustrative, searchable repository of centrally held learning objects (to support a range of academic skills), which exploits emerging technologies to provide a portable, flexible resource for FE and HE institutions across the region.

PLPP Study Skills

Linking to PLPP

• Let us know you are interested• Could you offer any resources? • Would you be able to organise the technical

support for using the objects?• Use PLPP resources on the web and help

us develop and evaluate them.

Links

• http://www.kent.ac.uk/is/plpp

• http://www.canterbury.ac.uk/plpp

• http://www.jisc.ac.uk

• http://www.jisc.ac.uk/pilotsdetail.html