student feedback and leadership - Office for Learning and Teaching

Part A: Developing a Distributed Leadership Model - Secton 3: Building Leadership Capacity3.5.3 ActDiscussion in the Project Team as to how to ensure that the academic staff andservice providers continue to communicate about Infrastructure and IT/AV ledto a decision to establish a group similar to LSAG. The proposed LearningEnvironment Improvement Group (L-EIG) was designed to adopt an actionresearchapproach with the same methodology of Plan, Act, Observe andReflect, through continuous cycles of improvement. L-EIG would provide anintegrating space to facilitate shared discussion around the monitoring andimproving of the learning environment across RMIT. L-EIG would:––Operate as a collaborative group to facilitate and provide supportfor the improvement of learning environments.––Act upon and implement changes in response to feedback fromstudents and staff.––Communicate improvements to interested staff.––Liaise with and input into university committees and groups(such as LSAG).––Report to the DVC(A) on issues related to improvinglearning environments.It was envisaged that L-EIG would have a minimum of 4 meetings per year,one at the start and end of each semester, with others scheduled as required.Membership of L-EIG would follow the multi-level leadership frameworkadopted for this project with representation from the DVC(A), Managersof each of the Service providers and Student Services, Deans AcademicDevelopment (Colleges), Director of Learning and Teaching and ResourceDirectors (of each of the three Colleges).However, at a subsequent Project Meeting it was agreed that rather thancreating a separate group, LSAG would be asked to extend its Termsof Reference and activities. It was proposed that L-SAG would sponsorfour forums per year in which Learning and Teaching leaders from Schoolsand Colleges would have the opportunity to discuss improvements neededto the learning environment.A further change that has been embedded into RMIT processes is that theVice President Resources is now part of the Program Annual Review process.This provides an opportunity for resource issues that affect entire Programsto be discussed with a view to identifying future resource needs.The final Plenary was designed to embed changes introduced in the projectby, firstly, presenting a snapshot of ART initiatives undertaken as a resultof this project and to link these to other LTIF projects to improve studentfeedback. Secondly, to identify how initiatives in this project link to initiativesintroduced by Student Services and People and Culture in the design ofprofessional development activities.Page 59