Taking the stress out of lesson planning and allowing Trades Instructors to do what they do best.
If you’re a technical college instructor starting to look in detail at your curriculums and lesson planning, you’re likely to face two key challenges:
- How can you ensure that your curriculum and lessons remain fresh, engaging, and incorporate the latest industry requirements while not putting undue pressure on your time?
- How can you balance a consistent learning path for all while providing a personalized and customized approach for each student? In short, how can you design a program where you are both teacher and mentor?
We all remember the teachers who played an essential role in our lives. Can technical college instructors today enjoy the same influence when the pressures of time – time to develop lessons and curriculum, time for each student in class, time to support accreditation, etc. – has never been more evident?
It’s against this backdrop that technology and Interplay Learning are coming to the rescue for instructors in two key areas:
- Lesson planning
- Creating personalized learning paths for students.
Curriculum Mapping
Curriculum mapping is part of lesson planning where lessons and coursework are aligned with learning outcomes, and this can often leave technical instructors in a cold sweat when changes need to be made.
All technical schools have set curriculums that match competencies with industry and accreditation standards. In many technical courses, such as HVAC, instructors structure their classes and lessons around set textbooks – Refrigeration & Air Conditioning Technology in HVAC, for example (now in its ninth edition).
Yet refining the curriculum can be a highly time-consuming and stressful process, requiring a complete restructuring of modules, the learning path, and the program as a whole. Instructors simply don’t have that kind of time!
That is until now.
Leveraging Training Technology to Help Curriculum Map
Instructors are getting a crucial edge in lesson planning today through Interplay Learning. Interplay provides you with a high-value enablement tool that brings textbooks, such as Refrigeration & Air Conditioning Technology, to life based on virtual reality (VR) technology and with minimal stress. And the benefits are clear.
A recent survey from global consulting firm PWC found that students undergoing VR are 3.75 times more emotionally connected to the content than classroom learners.
To support instructors in making curriculum changes, all Interplay’s virtual reality (VR) technology, 3D simulations, and gamification solutions are fully aligned with industry textbooks such as Refrigeration & Air Conditioning Technology (modules are even mapped to the table of contents and specific chapters). This allows instructors to simply ‘plug and play’ Interplay modules into the curriculum.
‘I would like to tweak my curriculum and focus more on the HVAC basics in week 2, or the environment challenges in week 4 or focus on an emerging industry standard in week 5.’
No problem! Interplay can not only provide the relevant modules but demonstrate to instructors how they can set up their lessons to align with what they are already doing with other content providers and textbooks.
Personalized Learning Paths
Through Interplay, instructors have the flexibility to refine curriculums and develop lesson plans without time-consuming structural change while at the same time ensuring a clear and personalized learning path based on each student’s progress and skill level.
Via Interplay’s learning platform or LMS integration, instructors can monitor student engagement and progress, see how actively and successfully individuals are engaging with training, assign courses based on different skill levels and determine whether they require more one-to-one support to address skills gaps.
By taking away the stress of lesson planning, curriculum mapping and creating a personalized learning path, you can excel at what you do best – mentoring and developing students. What’s not to like about that?
For more information or help supplementing your curriculum, contact Interplay Learning today.
