student feedback and leadership - Office for Learning and Teaching

Student Feedback & Leadership
3.4.4 Observe
The need to create a regular, centralised, opportunity for academics and
service providers to discuss issues of concern was emphasised by the positive
feedback of service providers to the lecture visits. Most stated that these
visits had identified problems of which they had not previously been aware.
One example was the negative student feedback from the need to move
venues for lecturers for three weeks during the Comedy Festival. This led
to a decision to discontinue this practice.
Information shared with the learning and teaching formal and informal leaders
resulted in greater discussion between the Schools and the PVC(A) Office
in several colleges about how to increase learning and teaching support.
In one College such discussions contributed to a decision to locate learning
and teaching experts in Schools for part of the year.
ARTs stated that School and College-based meetings had lead to an
increasing focus in the Schools on the importance of learning and teaching
improvements. The potential value of the initiatives that developed from ART
discussions was validated by the awarding of LTIF funding to consolidate
these as projects across the University.
3.4.5 Reflect
Reflection on the Leadership issues that emerged in Cycle Three suggests a
fourth element in a leadership framework for student feedback, PARTICIPATIVE
LEADERSHIP. It reinforced the importance of a co-ordinated systematic approach.
This would enable the participation of all service provision in a centrally
co-ordinated body to ensure university wide impact that enables decentralised
learning and teaching support tailored to specific disciplinary needs. The
establishment of LSAG demonstrated the opportunity to ensure shared
meaning to form the basis of new relationships between learning and teaching
experts and service providers. In addition, the funding of LTIF projects resulted
in consolidation of the advantages of a top-down, middle-out participative
teamwork approach to leadership.
A further reflection from this cycle was the potential for recognition of students
as stakeholders in building leadership capacity. This suggests a more inclusive
role for students beyond a passive contribution of simply providing periodic
feedback through the CES. This supported the views of the ARTs that there
is a need to more actively engage students more in student-centered
learning experiences.
This raises the question of the format, analysis and use of student feedback
collected through surveys such as the CES. This question needs to be pursued
in a further leadership project that focuses more on the role and contribution
of students as stakeholders in improving student feedback. Figure 12 presents
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