student feedback and leadership - Office for Learning and Teaching

Part A: Developing a Distributed Leadership Model - Secton 3: Building Leadership Capacity
3.3.3 Act
This cycle commenced with a number of actions:
1. The agreement by the Project Sponsor, DVC(A) to provide extra funding
to support some of the initiatives for change that several of the ARTs
had identified.
2. The creation of a project website open to all staff in order to develop
a more systematic approach to disseminating information to assist
transferability. Project documents including Reports, Notes from Plenary
sessions and reference material being developed were placed on the
website. Case studies of ART activities were publicised through the
RMIT On-line Learning and Teaching magazine, Ed.
3. A Mid Project Review was prepared and circulated for comment.
This identified achievements over the first year of the project
4. Interviews were held with a number of PVCs to complement the
group feedback emerging from other project activities.
5. ART members were invited to make presentations on what they were
doing to improve student feedback to new Lecturers at Level A and B
in the Graduate Certificate of Tertiary Teaching and Learning.
The third Plenary was designed to enable ARTs to present their project
progress on student feedback made during the first year. It was also designed
to enable Heads of School to present their experience in building leadership
capacity resulting from the ART activities.
ARTs stated that the project had led to an increase in discussion by staff
in the School on how to improve teaching practice and learning outcomes
for students. This had resulted in a more positive approach to the CES
than had been the case with staff spending less time on criticising the CES
as an instrument and more time on what changes could be made to improve
student feedback.
Heads of School emphasised the importance of embedding the leadership
capacity that was being built by making changes within the School as well
as disseminating the experience and outcomes across Schools and Colleges.
Examples of action they had taken within the Schools included the introduction
of incentives to extend teamwork to improving student feedback to other
Program teams, the establishment of School-based Learning and Teaching
Committees, and the design of opportunities for staff to become leaders
in learning and teaching within the School.
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