“Honestly, we thought this would be great, but if I want to change something, I either can’t or I have to start again from scratch. It’s a nightmare”
Have you ever had this challenge? Ok, maybe not to this degree of frustration (or maybe…), but mild annoyance that a system that is meant to make your life easier can’t quite do what you need? How much time and effort does this kind of thing cost the business?
Our estimation is, a lot, and whilst you never expect to hear this kind of story about a system that is designed to support a business, it is all too familiar.
Some systems present challenges in apprenticeships, some create problems. Let’s look at the what and the why:
Problems caused by the system?
Whether you have ever been on an apprenticeship or not, keeping curriculums logical and smooth is important for engagement and achievement tracking. If learners can be guided through a long and complex journey in a straightforward way, they are more likely to continue to progress. If the curriculum is clunky, it will distract from this.
Need to make changes?
Will you have to make changes? Sometimes
Will you want to make changes? Often
Well if you’re ever in either situation, expect to spend hours/days on redesigning or doing workarounds. This will most likely put off even the most capable curriculum team from making all but “essential” changes, and when it is essential, you’ll need to ringfence that time to do it. This can cause other challenges such as a slowdown in the development of new or existing standards, or tailored curriculums for new/existing clients/employers. Ultimately it either indirectly or directly harms the business.
Boring content for learners
Learning content is critical to the learner experience and will ultimately be a major influence in whether knowledge is retained, and skills become second nature. Too often, systems do not support media-rich, multi-layered learning, instead allowing you only to upload assets to a library in the form of documents, video or SCORM. You can sometimes insert a multiple-choice quiz to test knowledge.
It’s limited, to say the least.
Leading instructional designers will highlight that you don’t just need content, but a series of resources or links. There needs to be a narrative. To truly learn in a blended or fully online programme, it needs to be like you are in a facilitated session whenever you access that content, and then there needs to be a wide range of content mediums to appeal to all learning styles.
Often, systems cannot support the operation of the curriculum in this way, even when you have the vision and capability to do so, and so the content becomes, well…vanilla.
Sending learners away from the system to another one
Often, if you want to address the content problem, you’ll look to include a mix of media and links from a variety of sources. I get it, it makes sense.
However, what about the impact of sending learners away from the system to do their learning?
For me, a system should be able to incorporate every part of a programme (other than when technical learning and certification needs to happen with external companies/awarding organisations).
A system that can keep learners on the platform, and at the same time tracked their progress, would be far more useful to both parties, and open greater possibilities for further interaction and learning opportunities.
Why all those things are part of a bigger problem.
Impacts Learner Engagement
Vanilla content and a system that isn’t focused on the learner experience is likely to have a negative impact on learner engagement. Too often, systems have vital information about progress in formats that are not user-friendly and easy to understand. Even with great content, the user interface is challenging and frankly boring to look at. When links send you away from the system you use to deliver your apprenticeships, it devalues that investment for you as a provider, and it reduces the engagement the learner has with it.
This presents a big problem, as learner engagement and return on investment are critical revenue drivers to a provider.
Little Employer Involvement
When curriculums are inflexible, providers will find it challenging to involve the employer as much as they want to, for example tailoring the curriculum to the needs of their apprentice(s). This should be as simple as “looking at what we have coming up, I’d like you to access module X in the curriculum on the system, as it will really help you next week at work”. However, with an inflexible system, the provider cannot offer this to the employer, so they have little or no control over their apprentices’ journey.
Ofsted – Impact, Impact, Impact
As we all know, the realignment of the EIS in September 2019 presented a shift in focus from the quality of Teaching, Learning and Assessment to Intent, Implementation, and Impact.
Systems support with both the intent and implementation of the curriculum which is great. If however, learner and employer experience of that system are not front and centre, there will be a disconnect with the Impact the programme will have. This presents enormous challenges to providers, as the inspectorate will want to see from the learner/employer perspective, how impactful it has been for them – i.e., what can you/the apprentice do now that you could not do before?
There is another way…
The Eos System
Media Rich – images, interactive, activities, audio, video, every piece of our content has it all. There is a content builder, which can allow you to build the same for existing standards.
Narrative – our content has a narrative, linked specifically to the standard, which gives relevance to the learning, examples, and activities.
Blended – the system supports virtual classrooms, online content, social learning, learner/employer activities and on the job tracking.
Involved – the curriculum can be tailored to the learner by the employer, dynamically, ensuring they are involved and take ownership from the outset.
We have developed a system that takes the inflexibilities of other systems and made them the strengths of ours, so we are flexible and scalable. We deliver an experience that learners, employers, and curriculum teams enjoy using. You not only can easily see how the learners are impacted but actually improve ratings.
How do we do it? Give us a call and we’ll talk you through it. Contact Us