October has been an incredibly busy month, but also a brilliant start to the year. There’s been plenty of events to get involved with, the big plan has been well underway, and this has been an important month for many of the key education projects.
Immediately after welcome finished, I attended the University Steering Group to talk about the National Student Survey, with a particular focus on assessment and feedback. The group were discussing the importance of feedback being delivered speedily, and I spoke about how it is important not to overlook the importance of timing. I wanted to get across that students need to be able to see their feedback before their next deadline in that module, so that they have time to act on it and improve. It isn’t fair to be expected to meet deadlines without having your feedback arrive on time first. Also, prioritising speed is good but the quality of the feedback must not suffer as a result. On top of this USG meeting, I attended Research Committee, Academic Quality and Standards Committee and Senate. Additionally, I chaired the SU’s Union Performance Committee.
Students as Active Participants Working Group had a meeting which I chaired as well. The conversations around ways that students can further the academic control and the choices they have were encouraging. TEF was prevalent for me this month, as it was time for me to deliver a presentation of our TEF submission to the University. A lot of thought, time and effort went into this, and it was probably the most complicated presentation I’ve ever had to give, but I felt it went really well. Soon enough it will be time to complete the ten page submission. Really exciting stuff, I know…
The Big Plan has seen a really constructive month, the Cost of Living progress really has been amazing, but I’m sure some of the other sabbs will cover more about this in their blogs. In terms of Teaching Quality, we have been involved with numerous conversations with the University about the potential launch of a new dynamic feedback system which will allow students to be heard quickly and regularly. Their feedback will be able to be used for lecturers to improve their lectures swiftly, but also to commend lecturers doing incredible work. Its really nice to see significant progress on this project so early in the year. Breaking barriers for students with disabilities had its first working group meeting, which had student, SU and University representation on it. The discussions had were exceedingly useful and will hopefully lead to some action being taken soon. The conversations centred around things like improving signage, ablism in lectures, and staff training.
Hope this update was helpful! See you all in parliament :)