Furry Friends on Film help students study behaviour at College

Students studying Animal Care at East Durham College are getting some extra help thanks to some four-legged friends - and support from LSIS.

Increasing numbers of students on the course meant tutors needed to ensure that resources at the animal unit were available round the clock to as many students as possible. They also needed to maximize the use of resources in order that success and retention rates either remain at the high levels of previous years or increase.

Course leader, Ian Hall, had the idea of putting animal care online so students could observe their behaviour 24/7. The idea was given support by LSIS’s Leadership in Technology project, which focuses on promoting good practice. A local company lent a CCTV camera, and as a result students have been able to access the animal unit via the web, outside of traditional college hours. Recently, 82% of Animal Care Students (296) accessed the College’s virtual learning environment (VLE) over a weekend, when otherwise they would not have had access to college resources. In addition, they were able to observe the animals in a more natural way, without human intervention.

Ian said: “Learning should not be confined to nine to five. Keeping students interested and involved with their learning is so important. Access to the live camera feed, or recordings taken by handheld cameras via the VLE keep the students interested.

“With the increasing number of animal care students this is a means of making our resources as accessible as possible to as many students, and potential students, as we can.”