Credit: Adriana Iuliano
Deputy News Editor
Deputy First Minister John Swinney has announced the launch of an entire range of online teaching resources from University of Glasgow academic research. In collaboration with Education Scotland, this unique scheme will offer a wide range of resources tailored to suit the needs of Scottish students across the country.
The teaching materials are based on University of Glasgow research and will allow students to explore diverse subject areas in an innovative and accessible way. This not only gives children the opportunity to benefit from academic research but provides teachers with access to an abundance of creative resources.
Twelve resources have been specially created by practicing school teachers for the Curriculum for Excellence to use in Broad General Education (BGE). Teachers will have access to lesson plans, workbooks for pupils, Powerpoints, edited texts, audio files, videos, and images.
The collaboration initially started as a pilot in 2014 and is currently run by Professor Dauvit Brown, Dr. Joanna Tucker from the University of Glasgow and Lynne Robertson from Education Scotland.
The curriculum covers children in nursery all the way up to S3 secondary pupils. The resources, which include French comics, Scots language, and political songs will expand the learning curriculum and give children the chance to engage with academic subjects in the classroom.
Deputy First Minister John Swinney stated: “These resources deliver a diverse range of topics – many of which are unique in a classroom setting – to learners from age three to fifteen in an engaging and exciting way.”
Arts and Humanities Innovation Researcher, Dr. Tucker, said: “As University researchers, our work does not always ‘fit’ directly with the subjects taught and examined in the National Qualifications.” Dr. Tucker also stated that this scheme was the beginning of a new era, whereby universities and schools would start working together more closely.
In addition to curating the resources online, Education Scotland will also provide support for the scheme by recruiting teachers. The University ArtsLab, which supports research-led activities within the College of Arts, is funding the scheme by paying for teachers’ time.
