Motor vehicle fault finding - Bromley College Engineering Section 2/2

Overview

“The most challenging aspect of motor vehicle work-based programmes is teaching engine management diagnostic skills. Vehicles are becoming increasingly technically advanced and more reliable. This means that not only are faults harder to find, but also that apprentices have less opportunity to practice their diagnostic skills in their work places.

The software solution we’ve found for this problem is amazing – the graphics are actual photographs of an engine and sound is like the real thing – an important sense to use when diagnosing problems. And because it’s a computer ‘game’ it taps straight into the youth culture – so learners love it.”

Advice for others? “There is a good range of fault diagnosis programs on the market and it doesn’t matter which one you buy. As long as you are keen on it, you’ll excite the learners and they’ll buy into it too.”

Errol Ince – Head of Engineering

The good practice in detail

Have you watched any of the quality improvement programmes on the EGTV channel?
Click the link below to watch Errol and his students bring this good practice study to life:

Fault Finding – Bromley College

This case study is an illustration of one of the fundamental elements of any good lesson. With its emphasis squarely on teaching the learners how to become independent thinkers the teacher’s approach is dominated by the ‘coaching’ of the learners’ understanding, rather than the delivery of information – an approach that teachers from any vocational area could benefit from.

Why not download the Q-box Action Plan for this example and make notes as you read?

With opportunities for real work-place fault finding becoming increasingly rare, Errol feels this engine diagnostics simulator program is essential for developing the investigative skills of his learners – and of the trainers too – because of its detail, the depth of its faults database, and the realism of its operation.

“The program is fairly easy to use if you have a good understanding of diagnostics”, says Errol, “so the time you have to invest in actually working out how the software package works is very limited – you probably only need an hour or two.”

“It allows you to learn by trial and error.”

Setting up a fault is simply a matter of selecting a scenario from the database. Learners then have access to on-screen versions of all the test equipment they would find in their garage workplaces to help them solve the problem.

“One of the benefits of the simulator programme,” says student Stefan Jedrzeski, “is that it allows you to learn by trial and error – if you do make a mistake it allows you to rectify it and try again.”

Michelle Beckham, an apprentice from a Vauxhall main dealership: “It’s a lot harder to diagnose new cars when they come in with a fault because you’ve got so many more things it could be. The computer program helps us to learn how to quickly narrow down options and pin-point what the problem is.”

List some of the elements of your programme that require your learners to solve problems, be creative or rely on independent thinking. How often do you use coaching techniques with your learners – skilfully questioning and helping them until they make connections for themselves and demonstrate a real understanding of the subject?

Most of Errol’s lecturing staff now use the diagnostics program, but we caught up with one colleague, Simon Wild, who at the time of writing, had yet to assimilate the system into his teaching. As can be seen in the good practice film that accompanies this case study, Simon really liked the overall approach: “You can easily put over quite a complex problem which would be difficult to arrange in a workshop, especially with a group this size. Our workshops are being used all the time and it would be difficult to set these up, and difficult to get all the students round the engine rigs or cars. With this program, you can easily see all the components.”

“We’ve used the program with our level 3 students for a while now,” says Errol, “and they’ve found it fun and are really enthusiastic about using it as a tool to develop their skills and become very competent at diagnosing problems.”

“I think it’s amazing... everywhere should have one.”

As well as coaching groups and individuals through a variety of fault scenarios, Errol and his team also use a computer version of the TV quiz show Blockbusters and instant tests using the computer system’s voting button equipment. Employing a range of strategies to check the development of his learners’ understanding gives Errol great confidence in the effectiveness of their teaching and keeps the learning fun:

“I think it’s amazing,” says Michelle, “I think everywhere should have one (diagnostic program), because even if you’re just messing around on it, you learn so much – it’s so easy to see how everything works.”

Do you have any bottlenecks in your training, caused by insufficient access to equipment, staff or information? What sort of software program would you need to help resolve the problem? How could you research the availability of such solutions? What is the key message that you have taken from this case study?

In the college’s last inspection report, inspectors highlighted this area as a key strength:

• highly innovative use of ILT to support teaching and learning in motor vehicle lessons.

Uploaded – June 2009

What could you do next to improve your provision?

Answering all of the italicised questions in the Q boxes above will help you begin to health-check your current practice. Download all of the linked documents, compare them with your own or adapt them for your own use. Write a short action plan to get you from where you are now (what is good and what needs improving) to where you want to be.

The Building Better Practice (BBP) web resource is a great place to start if you want to benchmark yourself against other providers. It will show you the most common inspection strengths and weaknesses for each issue or topic, an analysis of the good practice found on inspection and a series of health-check questions to help you establish how you compare to others. Look specifically at how you could use BBP to improve your assessment practice and the internal verification in NVQ programmes.

Actions for Quality Improvement (AQI) is a set of activities with resources around which you can run staff development sessions with your teams. The activities cover all aspects of the learner’s journey and will help your staff embed quality improvement in the heart of your provision. Look specifically at how you could use AQI to improve your assessment practice.

If you need more help, ideas and resources for the process of self assessment then look at the Learner-Centred Self Assessment (LCSA) materials. This is a web-based or hard-copy resource to help you generate a rich source of evidence for your self-assessment report through professional discussion rather than the completion of lengthy forms.

9 Data Projects to Improve Your Provision is a set of projects which help you use data to explore all aspects of the learner’s journey for improvement themes.

The Self-Assessment Surgery Projects have proved very popular at the Preparing for Inspection events. They will help you determine whether or not your SAR is fit for purpose.

Interpreting the Common Inspection Framework (CIF) is essential guidance on how to interpret the CIF for your remit and is now contained in the appendices of the Ofsted inspection handbook for work-related and adult and community learning.

The Inspection Toolkit contains step-by-step guidance on how to prepare for inspection and covers such topics as choosing the right person to be nominee, using data and self assessment.