Derrin and Elizabeth Kent are Co-Directors of The Development Manager. They met in Peru as colleagues in language teaching and teacher training programmes. They share a lifelong professional passion for delivering task-based learning where the learner is treated as an adult who owns their own learning aims. This view on education brought them together, and later down the line, also led them to set up "The Development Manager" in the UK.
TDM was initially founded as a Virtual Learning Environment support company who had a social constructivist view of how online learning should best be delivered.
In 2011, eSkillsUK were encouraging TDM to offer learning solutions for techs - in addition to our offer of tech solutions for learners - as there was such a critical tech skills shortage in the UK. This is where Derrin and Ely saw an opportunity to fully merge their passion for technology and a passion for meaningful education. They saw that the best way to achieve this was to deliver Apprenticeships on a Virtual Learning Environment - delivering genuinely work-based learning underpinned by academic rigour.
The best learning doesn't happen in a classroom, neither does it happen in day. Rather, a long-term coaching journey over genuinely work-based application tasks is the best route for developing all professionals - and especially tech professionals.
Today, TDM choose to partner only with other employer organisations who also believe in this long-term talent development approach. Derrin and Ely believe that all people and all companies can and should do well (for themselves) by doing good (for others) and this belief is shared by their team, their employer partners and the learners who join TDM.
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