The Development of Confident Futures Online

using Moodle

Mo Andrew

& Gareth Peevers

Edinburgh Napier UniversityApril 2014

Outline

• What is Confident Futures?• Why online?• Underpinning principles• Why Moodle?• What does Confident Futures Online look like?• What do students say about the courses? • Key lessons learned• Moving forward

What is Confident Futures?

A stimulating menu of personal development workshops that are designed and delivered (by specialised facilitators) to students within the professional context in which the skills, attributes and approaches will be used – as part of their academic studies.

The workshops aim to equip students to:• Be more successful in their academic studies

• Increase their competitive edge with employers

• Reach their full potential, both now & in future

Confident Futures Wheel

Why online?

• To offer workshops to student cohorts off-campus & off-shore – in order to provide the same learning opportunities as on-campus students

• To increase the range of opportunities for designing/delivering Confident Futures workshops as part of blended learning models – including ‘flip training’

Underpinning principles

• Replicate interactivity of Confident Futures workshops

• Provide opportunities for:

– reflecting on own practice &/or performance

– receiving feedback on practice &/or performance

• Offer to cohorts of students as part of academic studies

• Would be tested and piloted with students

C F

Why Moodle?

• As Edinburgh Napier’s VLE, it would allow a controlled environment

• Allows tracking of student progress• Its text editor enables all staff to update/edit

course content• To ‘future-proof’ the courses

• The challenge of using Moodle was to customise the courses to have a unique style, look & feel

What does Confident Futures Online look like?

Making Feedback Work For You

What does Confident Futures Online look like?

Building Resilience

What do students say?

Effective Communication course

“The activities are very good examples of the ideas presented in the workshop”

Manage Yourself, Manage Your Time course

“Liked the option to hear/download and get written intro/podcast”

Key lessons learned

• Administration and enrolment

• Engaging students

• Format & content of online courses

• Monitoring activity and completion

• Collecting feedback

Moving Forward

• Continued development of non-Flash-based activities

• Development of ‘white label’ version of Making Feedback Work for You to other HEIs

• Continued testing with off-shore international student cohorts

• Extend models for blended learning delivery

• Enhance promotion of features & benefits of Confident Futures Online to academic staff

• Further refinement & modification