Having secured just over £25,000 from the Savoy Educational Trust back in March, the College were able to purchase specialist video equipment to facilitate and stream live practical demonstrations, to allow students to watch at home or from a socially distanced environment within the college.
Fast-forward a couple of months and the digital delivery of teaching and learning is in full swing.
Hospitality Curriculum Enhancement Lecturer, Christopher Watson who has been making the most of the equipment since it was installed said, “We’re still getting to grips with it all but so far it’s been great. From a social distancing point of view, it’s fantastic, as it allows us to focus in on workstations and switch between them allowing demonstrations to be delivered safely whilst not impacting on the student experience.
'The equipment has the function to record and take pictures so content can be shared via Teams allowing students to use it for reflection and studying for assessments, something they haven’t been able do before now.
‘It has also allowed students to tune in from home, if for some reason they can’t make class. I carried out a live session last week which was streamed to Aberdeen University and the feedback we got from them was very positive.
‘’I'm, looking forward to seeing how we can develop and grow the curriculum with the use of the technology for the coming year”
The positive feedback was echoed by the students.
Professional Cookery Level 5 student, Qiao Ling Cheung said, “Pre covid we’d have huddled around the demonstration area but we’ve not been able to do that due to social distancing so it’s been hard to see exactly what’s going on. Being able to watch the demonstrations on screen from our own stations is great.”
Not only are students seeing the benefits from the classroom, they are also making the most of being able to access practical teaching whilst recreating dishing for friends and family at home.
Student, Erin Temporal, said
The sessions are taped and put on Teams so it’s been really useful to be able to go on from home and watch the class again and use them to recreate dishes at home”
Jim McAllister, Head of Hospitality, Tourism Languages and Business, said, “The feedback from our students and staff has been great at such an early stage of the project.
We are confident that as the campus teams have more time with the technology, we can enhance our Learning and Teaching approaches to deliver a better student experience. It also allows us to enhance both our digital and personalised learning strategies across our Hospitality curriculum.”