The Challenge
Preston’s College is a college focused on employability - its mission is to help create the most employable learners, and 90% of the College’s full-time 16-18 year old learners go on to further study, an apprenticeship, or employment.
They aim to provide the culture, environment, facilities, innovation, and services to enable learners at all career stages, local businesses and the College itself to develop and maintain social mobility and a thriving local economy.
To achieve the above goals, the College decided that they needed a VLE that aligned with their vision. Their vision included using technology in a smart way.
It was important for Preston’s College that they didn’t just use technology for technology’s sake and in a silo, but rather in a focused way that could always be linked back to teaching and learning, preparing their students as best they can for future employability.
They needed a VLE that could instigate a step change in teaching and learning, and provide the openness and flexibility they need to keep growing and developing.
With the introduction of Canvas we can encourage student autonomy, ensure wider curriculum access and provide high quality alternative teaching and learning approaches that match student needs - and in turn facilitate an excellent learning experience.”
Alison Humphreys
Head of Quality, Teaching & Learning – Preston’s College
The Decision
In 2017, the College made their decision to move from Moodle to Canvas. When evaluating Canvas versus their legacy VLE, Moodle, they were impressed by the ability to achieve differentiation in Canvas (via MasteryPaths), the social media style look and feel, the improved layout of Canvas, and how easy it was to achieve integrations in Canvas.
As Alison Humphreys, Head of Quality, Teaching & Learning at Preston’s College, said, this was because Canvas could be “integral to changing our approach to teaching, learning and assessment” and “could house the different types of technology we needed to implement our approach to teaching and learning”.
One key driver for Alison and her team was a desire to empower her staff and start to reconsider the pedagogical approaches they were using. They didn’t want their LMS to be just a document repository, but a positive learning environment.
Key Findings
They wanted their LMS to be a positive learning environment.
There has been immediate buy-in and significant increase in uage compared to the previous LMS.
Canvas has empowered staff to rethink their pedagogical approach and how they utilise technology
The Results
Preston’s College have been thrilled with their experience with Canvas. Canvas has allowed them visibility into what learning is taking place and how it is positively affecting their students. There was nearimmediate buy-in from a staff-base who have vastly different technological skill levels and have seen vastly different usage of their legacy LMS as a result. As Alison describes below, the ease-of-use Canvas provides was key in achieving that buy-in:
“We’ve found it a lot easier to use than Moodle. As soon as they put a Quiz up and they can see it going straight into a Gradebook and the SpeedGrader, they’re just delighted that the grades are there and they can see the progress at the touch of a button. As soon as they start to see that process, the buy-in is there straight away.”
Preston’s College have found that technology like Canvas has enabled them to reduce the burden on staff and place learning in the hands of the students, through native features such as assessments and quizzes built in to the learner journey. They’ve empowered students and put them in the driving seat, and Canvas has been fundamental in achieving that change in approach. Tools like native peer review, Collaborations and Discussions have helped students take ownership over their learning.
As well as empowering students, Preston’s have also found that moving to Canvas has empowered staff to rethink their pedagogical approach and how they utilise technology. As Alison outlines below, Canvas instigated the step change in teaching Preston’s were looking for.
“Moving to Canvas has really empowered staff to think differently about technology. It’s not a tickbox to use in a classroom - it’s about how can that enhance the learning, it’s how can it develop their skills as staff, and how can it digitally develop our learners.”
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