This Faculty brings together subjects from the Business School, School of Law and the School of School of Health and Education.
Here are some examples of the changes we've made based on your feedback.
Student's learning experience is at the heart of all we do. We hold focus groups with our students throughout the year to understand the issues that each cohort faces, as these can vary from year to year. Some of the concerns are easily fixed, however, there are other matters that require further planning and implementation.
As much as we try to eliminate anxiety associated with assessment this can be the number one concern for students. To try to alleviate the convern, this year all modules have uploaded a video on MyLearning, in line with the Technology Enhanced Learning threshold, explaining in detail the key aspects of the assessment.
Students on modules with 100% coursework now have the opportunity for a face to face meeting where they’ll receive feedback on a draft of their coursework. They are also able to record this meeting and receive detailed written feedback. We’re hoping this style of feedback will provide extra resources for students to improve their learning as well as enhance their learning experience.
The adjustment to higher education can be difficult for first year students especially on modules with 300 students. On core specialist modules for first and second year students we have replaced the large lecture style teaching in favour for smaller groupings of students with a maximum of 40 students in each group. We will evaluate the impact of this at the end of the academic year although to date the feedback suggests student engagement is higher than previous years.
Students are now able to get direct responses on their feedback via two new methods. The first is organised by the academic Year Leader (YL) who will inform students of the responses face to face in class and in small groups.
The second is via Student Voice Leaders who receive written responses to issues raised from the Director of Programmes.
We are planning more meetings with students from Year 2 and Year 3 to help students discuss their modules and career choices.
We are setting up a lunch meeting with some of our alumni.
We are continuing our policy of industry visitors to talk to Year 2 and Year 3 students.
Experiments are used by many Module Leaders regularly in their teaching.
We have been organising an annual workshop for Year 12 students which is in its fourth year now. The idea is to get younger students interested in economics.
Every module has a designated time-slot in the Graduate Academic Assistant's weekly timetable for students to come individually or in groups to seek help. This will further enhance the academic support to students and the availability of teaching staff to meet with students outside office hours on request. The Head of Department meets with the Graduate Academic Assistants to know if any issues are being raised.
We have started an Economics blog to encourage students to participate in discussions related to Economics.
A timetabling task force was established early this year to improve students' experience. This required the development of a manual timetable that is more student-centered.
We are using Moodle more consistently to support all types of learners. We have also developed a task force to evaluate and improve existing induction practices.
We have made a number of adjustments to assessment, including deadlines and assessment weighting, to help students. For the Policy and Planning module we have reduced the exam weighting to 40% and increased the coursework weighting by 10% based on student feedback.
For the Tourism and Society module, we had introduced a student led walk as a new assessment (20% of assessment) with a written rationale alongside (10% of the assessment). However, students felt the rationale did not sufficiently contribute to the overall piece of work. As a result we have dropped the rationale and added the 10% to the walk itself to recognise the design and implementation elements.
The field trip to Hastings is assessed via a learning journal. However, students were unable to complete this successfully due to not being used to such forms of assessment. We have therefore divided the journal into two sections; reflections on what they did and reflections on the issues facing Hastings. For each section, there are three specific questions plus one 'free' issue to decide for themselves. This gives the students more of a framework to fall back on and helps bridge the gap between school and university.
We have incorporated industry speakers from a variety of industry sectors to provide better links between theory and practice. Guest speakers will also deliver lectures in a range of undergraduate and postgraduate modules
Students asked to be more involved in choosing their supervisor for the dissertation rather than having one assigned to them. We now engage students fully in this process by doing our best to meet requests, given the constraints of workload and staff expertise.
Postgraduate students will also be allocated supervisors before submitting their proposals. This will allow our students to benefit from academic support even during the planning phase of their dissertation
We're planning to arrange online English classes for students.
Module leaders are in the process of updating and uploading “How to do” video guides to support students who are struggling with MDX systems. These videos show students how to do mock tests, how to submit processes and various other tasks they will come across.
Seminars will be recorded to ensure all students have access to the learning content. Seminar tasks will be emailed in advance to further help students.
Reminder emails will be sent along with a link to Kaltura so students can quickly join a seminar.
In order to manage large numbers and disruptive students, module leaders will be able to mute all students in online classes.
The Programme Leader has endeavoured to spread the timetable over 3 or 4 days for all students.
The request to extend the fees payment deadline has been approved.
In response to students' requests, we are planning to incorporate more activities and debates within the course.
Module Leaders are organising online video meetings and support sessions as well as putting more updates on My Learning. These updates will include tips for exam revision, guidelines for exams, and how to schedule Online Lectures / Seminars / Drop In Sessions on Adobe Connect Video meetings.
Working closely with our students and co-creating their learning experience is a strategic priority for our department. In the last year we have focused on the following themes in seeking to improve the student experience:
We initiated discussions with all Module Leaders around variety of assessment, types of feedback and feedback opportunities offered, clarity of marking sheets as well as clarifying expectations to students.
Meetings are also held with Module Leaders to discuss any issues identified from Module Evaluation surveys, External Examiners’ reports and Programme Voice Groups. These meetings have resulted in additional support, feedback sessions and materials.
Changes to programme leadership were made as the Module Leaders and Programme Leaders were encouraged to work actively with their teams in view of improving consistency of feedback, grading and overall support provided for our students. Year Tutors were introduced on our largest programme to support the Programme Leader in offering more time for individual contact.
Students needed greater support on core modules and such support has been provided through the use of Graduate Academic Assistants dedicated assistance across all levels. GAAs have actively engaged with tutorials and various other forms of module support, including offering office hours and increasing the availability of individual contact. More support sessions focusing on dissertations and academic integrity have been also provided.
We introduced a departmental module feedback survey in weeks 5-7 to enable us to tackle particular module issues immediately and communicate to students the actions taken. Module Leaders and Programme Leaders inform what students feedback we have collected and what we have done to address it.
The personal tutoring systems has enabled staff to have direct communication with students in small groups, which also allows us to both collect feedback and communicate actions taken by the department in response to the feedback.
Students wanted more support regarding employability and job seeking. The department has worked closely with the employability team to integrate and promote their services to students.
We also launched a series of employability workshops designed to improve student problem solving, communication and interviewing skills as well as preparing them for the elements of the graduate selection process such as writing tailored CVs, interviewing skills, aptitude tests and assessment centres. The workshops are also designed to raise students’ awareness of the importance of developing a lifelong approach to learning while also seeking to raise both staff and students’ awareness of the personal and professional development opportunities available to students to engage with throughout their studies.
In addition, we launched an Industrial Advisory Panel to advise the Department about developments which affect future demand for skills, knowledge and behaviours. The panel offers industry perspectives on the department’s curricular offer and its future development and suggest ways to enhance the employability of our students.
Students had voiced frustration at having to wait up to a year for their graduation ceremony after finishing their degree, so Winter Graduation has been set up to mark this occasion earlier.
Students want more opportunities to practice their skills. Over the last few years, our skills team have arranged sessions for students where they can practice any clinical skill in a supervised session. They have set up the room with “skills packs” and students have access to relevant skills procedures guides.
From 2019, we have a dedicated, staffed room every day of the week, open for students across nursing, midwifery and nursing associate programmes, to be able to drop in and practice their skills.
Students appreciate new online chat
Child Health students had reported feeling extremely anxious before undertaking their OSCE in the skills labs. This was reflected in relatively high first referral rates. The team suggested introducing therapy dogs and additional practice sessions. This was planned for the exam days and the outcome has been improvements in the pass rate for OSCE.
The use of dogs has now been extended so we now have an established Canine Teaching Assistant programme, where we offer the dogs to help alleviate student stress across the campus.
Students on the Adult Nursing course have had complex timetabling challenges in Year 2. A lack of placement capacity with partner NHS organisations meant we had to convert one 5 or 6 week “practice placement” into a simulated / virtual placement, giving students a wide range of additional taught and skills sessions across the year.
Following this feedback and a slight rise in placement capacity, the team re-structured the entire second year. The first placement for each student in Year 2 is now an 8-week placement in one area, preceded by a concentrated two weeks of simulated learning.
Evaluations of this initiative have been positive with students feeling far better prepared for practice in Year 2. Our Director of Programmes completed a ward round in one of our large NHS Trusts and spoke to many students who had just come from two weeks in simulated learning; they were enthusiastic about their ability to apply learning to clinical practice already.
Students (and clinical partners) across the Adult Nursing course have asked for cannulation and phlebotomy skills. We have now started to introduce this teaching for students at the end of Year 3, as we recognise that certain partner Trusts will not enable them to practice these skills.
We have also started offering Care of the Deteriorating Patient sessions to students across all fields of nursing. These initiatives have been positively evaluated, and mean that we are better able to up-skill our existing students in line with the new Nursing education standards.
Students on this course asked for more support with mental health and well-being issues experienced on this very intensive programme. We identified a lead tutor to develop expertise and implement new initiatives across the secondary programmes including:
Students requested an MA programme as a direct progression route from their BA. This was planned and validated with full student involvement and had its first cohort in October 2018.
Following feedback from students after the first year, the syllabus of one of the core modules has been re-organised and now incorporates a wider range of policy case studies for students to engage with. This provides enhanced opportunities for engagement with more policy areas relevant to education.
Education and Early Childhood students also requested further academic support and this resulted in the following initiatives:
Students requested the opportunity to observe in school for a week prior to their block placements. We have re-organised placement induction days to include a week in school
Student on these courses requested a reduction in paperwork whilst on school placement. We have revised the paperwork to reduce the students' workload, without limiting their opportunity to evaluate children's learning
We have also introduced ad developed:
The Learning and Teaching Team made changes as a result of feedback from students following individual and group personal tutorials, Programme Voice Groups and our own ‘temperature check’ sessions. As a result of these sessions, we adapted our assessment timings to take account of the heavy demands on these students who are also working four days a week. Deadlines and the workload is now aligned to their work patterns in schools.
Learning and Teaching students requested the inclusion of more specialist staff specifically for the science sessions in the programme which has now been put in place. We have also increased the use of guest lecturers from schools to ensure that the students have real life experiences to help link theory and practice.
The Learning and Teaching staff have developed a new assignment feedback template to help staff make their feedback more consistent across the team. Students can expect to receive feedback which is linked to the published marking criteria, with feed-forward comments, consistent across the cohort.
We published the Department Annual Review in December, a digital magazine showcasing many of the activities that the Department engages in both internally and externally. It was well received and as a result we expanded the student sections in the report so students can share their work/activities. We also pushed the publication date forward to coincide with the start of the academic year.
This publication has now been circulated via email to every student with a welcome message to new and returning students by the Head of Department and is located on all associated programme pages. We will continue to monitor the impact of this activity in increasing students ‘sense of belonging to the Department and wider community of practice’ via PVGs.
We are now in our fourth year of running the Interprofessional Learning Symposia which is a weekly open seminar across a range of health and social care topics. We introduced these seminars in response to student feedback for the need of flexible learning opportunities around ‘diverse and topical subjects’ and exposure to other disciplines as well as joint learning. Evaluation by students via feedback indicates that this is a valued addition to students' learning experience.
We have introduced informal gatherings at the end of the first semesters (Christmas) to facilitate contact with tutors and increase cross cohort/year cohesion.
The Placement Lead confirmed that the team have been in contact with students to go through their individual placement situation and will continue to do so until all students have been contacted by 12 June 2020
Tutors will look to offer a blend of pre-recorded and interactive sessions in response to student feedback.
The Teaching Team are working on a safety guidance as the students safety is the paramount to the university so that their students experience is not hindered in any way at all and remains a positive one.
Automatic deferral was welcomed as WFH can be challenging and sometimes difficult to concentrate.
A ‘Newsletter’ email will be prepared and sent to students with regular updates. It was also agreed that a students will be contacted to gain their views on different placement scenarios and their preferences.
Students who want to catch up on a missed lecture can do so through MyLearning. All lecture material is now uploaded to MyLearning before the lecture.
Some modules were felt to be ‘too theoretical’, so we will ensure that all modules give students the opportunity to engage with ‘real-world’ material. This could be though field visits, practitioner sessions, observation visits, or data analysis.
We will support the development of the CRMSOC student society as well as help it run social, academic and career-focused events. We are also committed to organising an ‘employability fair’ for our students.
We are introducing a new feedback template and aim to increase the number of students making use of one-to-one tutorials in staff office hours. We are also working to introduce anonymous marking by the end of this academic year which will be piloted with student feedback.
Students were concerned with too many assignments being due at the same time. We will now aim to map all assignment dates to minimise any overlap, and to ensure no assignments are due on the date the dissertation is due (for third year students).
As well as supporting the Programme Voice Groups, we have created informal feedback mechanisms at module level and will initiate a monthly video for students, with updates on actions taken in response to issues raised.
