student feedback and leadership - Office for Learning and Teaching

Part A: Developing a Distributed Leadership Model - Secton 1: Framing LeadershipA critical learning and teaching challenge is to develop more effective strategiesto ensure that student feedback leads to and informs approaches to improvingstudent learning outcomes and experiences. Creating a culture that supportsa broad based and informed approach to the use of student feedback requireswell developed leadership at all levels of the institution (Lueddeke 2003).It is within this twin context of the internal university need to improve the studentlearning experience and thus improve student feedback and the exploration ofa sector wide need for clarification of leadership and responsibility for studentfeedback that this project was formulated. The project was funded under theAustralian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC formerly the Carrick Institute)Leadership Grants Scheme Program (Anderson & Johnson 2006). This schemewas established to support research into leadership in learning and teachingin Higher Education that adopts a systemic, multi-faceted and coherentapproach, utilises policy instruments, and is guided by the principles of criticalaction learning (Marshall 2006). The project adopted the Distributed modelof leadership that the ALTC Leadership Forum had concluded is neededin Higher Education (ALTC Colloquium 2006), with the aim of identifyingwhether, and how, this model applies in regard to student feedback.1.4 Project AimsThe aims of the project cover a broad spectrum with an emphasis on fosteringand developing leadership and leadership capacity in the effective use of studentfeedback through the identification of critical success factors and barriers toeffective leadership. Included in this it was aimed to:––Foster leadership roles and responsibilities that will effectively informacademic work plans and the teaching and learning strategy––Develop leadership capacity at various levels of staff with different roles,responsibilities and functions in the effective use of student feedbackto improve assessment for learning, teaching large classes andteaching capabilities––Evaluate leadership capacity building approaches and practice––Critically analyse success factors for and barriers to effective leadershippractices and policies––Implement a leadership culture that enables informed approachesto the use of student feedback, development of personal perspectivesand organisational change– – Integrate different leadership perspectives within academic practiceto help frame the use of student feedback as an important elementof academic leadership workPage 17