Leicester 2 Colin 20

This repeat visit to Leicester College (we were there in June 2009) was the 20th Colin Beard Experiential Learning Day put together for lecturers delivering HE level education programmes in a FE environment.

Even though there's been 19 similar events around the country over the last 4 years, and there'll be more in the North and on the South coast later in the year, recommendations from previous attendees meant that delegates were willing to travel from as far away as Brighton and Greenwich, with two of those present making the effort to "experience the difference" for a second time in less than twelve months.

As usual, a full day and an engaging facillitator meant that nobody's attention was diverted from the activities in the room, although our venue on the second floor of the Freemen's Park campus has such an excellent view (from the window to the right in the picture above) of the magnificent rubgy ground which is home to the Leicester Tigers that we should probably have included a mention of it in the programme for the day instead of just alluding to it in a post title...

There's no substitute for experience

Less than 5 weeks left to Colin Beard's latest Experiential Learning Day (there's been 19 of these days over the last four years, and this one at Leicester college is almost full), so if you're reading this and want to know what a combination lock made from drinking cups is all about, download a programme from http://www.playingwithlearning.com/subpages/images/Leicester_Prog.gif

All in the best possible Taste

Twenty college delegates from across middle-England (East to West: Worcester up to Stockport) joined us in Leicester College's hospitality suite (part of the Taste restaurant - "Leicester's best kept secret") for the latest Experiential Learning Day with Dr Colin Beard.
As an aperitif , I introduced myself & stated that there were no planned fire drills (although we had 4, apparently due to incompetent builders), and who Colin was (is?), followed by a main course of teaching techniques that can readily adapted to individual subject areas.
Dessert was me swapping strips of raffle tickets for completed feedback sheets (20:20 happiness) & a prize draw for some copies of Colin's book which were left over from last year's Playing with Learning Conference. As I've been to more than a dozen of these so far, the highlight for me was finally (after 4 failed attempts) getting to experience (geddit?) Taste resaurant's food part-way through the day.
Everything I'd been led to believe it was. And more. Absolutely delicious....

Experiential Learning Day

Pershore College, Worcestershire 27th March
This latest Experiential Learning event featuring Colin Beard took place at an agricultural college south of Birmingham, which for no cohesive reason was the most successful (in terms of numbers) run over the last three years. 30 delegates (plus 11 on the waiting list for next time - probably Doncaster), were treated to Colin's Introduction to a working model to help design teaching activities, Teaching models and theories, Improving student assignment introductions, Developing higher levels of critical thinking for HE work, Developing innovative thinking in students etc...
As two of the attendees had travelled down from Stockton-on-Tees (who got a recommendation from a colleague, but since nobody else from SoT has attended any of the previous 9 that's a bit of a puzzle) and wouldn't be home until 11.45 pm, I'm not going to whine about my 4-hour trip in each direction on a Friday. Or maybe I will....