Student feedback is a vital component of producing improved learning experiences, even more so for a highly atypical Autumn session impacted by travel restrictions and a swift pivot to remote teaching. In mid-April, Prof Shirley Alexander, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education and Students) was encouraged by mostly positive feedback by students, despite their feelings of isolation. From her observations, some key themes were identified from analysis of the qualitative responses to the 2020 Autumn session Early Feedback on Subjects (EFS). Further to this, Nicholas Manganas used insights from a focus group in FASS to develop a 7-step action plan to address students’ pain points.
For the next six weeks, we want to support you to ‘bounce back into spring‘ with all the support you need – under 6 key themes that reflect real student feedback from Autumn session. Expect to see new resources, inspirational blog posts and online workshops, both on the Futures Digest newsletters and on the new-look Spring Reactivation Toolkit – where each Thursday a new tile will be revealed with links to the relevant stories, resources and upcoming online events.
For the first week, we tackle how to best structure your Canvas site and set clear expectations for your students. Easier said than done? Ease in with these new blogs and resource pages:
Not everyone accesses digital content in the same way – and that’s why it’s important to make sure your subject site is accessible. On Thursday 30th, we will also be running an online event on how to make your site accessible for all students:
Check your inbox on Thursday (or catch-up anytime on the Spring Activation Toolkit homepage) to get all the latest support for the weekly theme. The upcoming themes we will be focusing on are:
- How to be present & communicate effectively (July 30th)
- How to use media to transform your lectures (August 6th)
- How to encourage student interaction online (August 13th)
- How to design group work… that works! (August 20th)
- How to give effective feedback that will resonate with students (August 27th)