student feedback and leadership - Office for Learning and Teaching

Part A: Developing a Distributed Leadership Model - Secton 3: Building Leadership Capacity3.2.3 ActThis cycle saw an increase in the level of activity by all parties involvedin the project.ART Leaders took on a more proactive role in identifying issues outsidethe control and responsibility of individual teachers and discussing thesein Project Team meetings.ARTs were assisted by external Facilitators with expertise in pedagogy.The leadership contribution made by Facilitators varied depending onthe ART. One of the Facilitators provided external examples of successfulstudent support, another provided knowledge of issues of pedagogy thatcomplemented the discipline-based expertise, and the third assisted with thedevelopment of an ethics application that would help ART members engagein scholarship into their teaching practice. An Appreciative Inquiry approachto identification of issues was adopted by one ART.ART Facilitators met regularly to share experiences from the differentdisciplinary perspectives. Given the value of these meetings as forums forlinking action being taken by ART members to reflection upon leadershipissues, it was decided that ART Leaders would be invited to attend theFacilitator meetings. While this placed further time constraints on ARTLeaders, it did serve to assist to develop their understanding of the dualrole of academics in improving student learning: as teachers designingand delivering the learning experience for students and as leadersof teaching practice in positively responding to student feedbackand making improvements.With the addition of leaders from the systems and infrastucture providers,the Project Team expanded its focus to explore the leadership contributionof Service providers in the improvement of the student learning experience.Discussion in the Project Team concerning issues raised by the ARTs andtimely action taken by representatives of these service providers to theissues identified by the ARTs, led to the Project Team adopting a morecentral role in this project.The second Plenary was held on August 7th. The main focus of the plenarywas to facilitate the broader sharing of ART progress and experience to dateand to provide the opportunity for ART members to reflect upon theof question of leadership capacity building that was occurring.Presentations identified the ongoing focus of each of the ARTs on the analysisof student feedback data. This confirmed the importance of the need fora more multi-functional leadership approach to student feedback.The School of Mathematical and Geospatial Science ART analysis of CESfeedback had revealed issues of learning environment (room allocation,noise level, computer availability) as a problem.ART members had begun to share learning and teaching techniques andthis had led to positive teaching strategies that had encouraged staff to trialchanges in their own classes. For example the ART Leader reported an acrossPage 45