Broadcast: News items

Dr. Graeme Pedlingham

Today (Tuesday 19 October), Deputy Pro-Vice Chancellor for the Student Experience, Graeme Pedlingham, wrote to all teaching staff. You can read the email in full below:

Dear colleague,
 
This semester we are trying a new, University-wide approach to gathering student feedback on how students are finding their modules. The aims of this are to provide subjects, convenors and tutors with robust and consistent information about students’ learning experiences so far. This approach should also give students a shared expectation as to how they can provide feedback, and how this will be acted upon.
 
This will involve a very short survey that we are asking module convenors to conduct in a teaching session next week (Week 5). This should require no more than 4-5 minutes, and will be accessed through a single link or QR code. If module convenors could ensure that students are given the opportunity to complete this in a teaching session, in each module, next week and that the link is provided via the module’s Canvas site for those unable to attend the session, this would be very much appreciated.
 
The survey link and additional guidance for students, which we hope might help colleagues in introducing the survey, will be distributed through a second message towards the end of this week. This current message is, then, intended to provide some advance notice.
 
The information collected from this survey will be collated centrally and distributed to module convenors (about their specific module/s) in Week 6. It will then be important for module convenors to consider this feedback and respond to students on the module about actions taken in response to their feedback by the end of Week 7.
 
Of course, many tutors will do informal student mid-module feedback exercises anyway – this survey should still be conducted, but we would hope that other informal ways of gathering student voice (e.g. PollEverywhere) about specific aspects of modules could still happen, where relevant, and be useful as part of a continuous dialogue with students.
 
The survey itself has been developed with input from colleagues across Schools and collaboratively with students.
 
This process is part of work to gather student feedback on teaching and learning in a more systematic and usable way, particularly given widespread concerns regarding current MEQs. It is also a key part of work to address consistent cross-School challenges around Student Voice in the NSS, with students often reporting that they are unsure how their feedback is used.
 
Thank you for your support in this important initiative – we hope it will prove to be a helpful one.
 
Thanks all & kind wishes,
Graeme
 
Dr. Graeme Pedlingham
Deputy Pro-Vice Chancellor for the Student Experience
Head of Central Foundation Years
University of Sussex