Keep scrolling for a summary of feedback we gathered from students and staff and a summary of recommendations made by our theme leads
Our themes for the student and staff workshops were Accessibility; Technology; Training and skills; Assessment; Space on campus and Innovation.
Accessibility
What students and staff told us:
- Teaching content, materials and programmes need to be designed to be accessible and inclusive from the start
- Students and staff should be involved throughout to agree design standards, principles and plans for accessibility
- More content and materials should be available online with better transcription and sound quality
- More resources and training for staff required to support them in accessible and inclusive teaching
- Assessments should be more accessible
- We should better communicate the support services available
- All software, tools, websites and forms need to be accessible and we should explore how we can give all students access to suitable hardware
- We should explore new approaches to pathways, curriculum design and timetabling to allow diverse groups of students to access higher education
Accessibility
What our theme leads recommend, based on your feedback:
To enable Flexible Learning, we must incorporate accessibility and inclusivity in everything we do – space on campus, teaching and learning materials, assessment etc. We must continue to employ a collaborative approach to doing this that embodies the ethos of “nothing about us, without us”.
Technology
What students and staff told us:
- Our digital tools need to integrate seamlessly: efficient, simple, and consistent
- We should streamline the amount of tools we use
- Blackboard requires upgrading or replacing
- Better mobile/app, tablet and offline support required
- We need more time and the right culture to support training and transition to new tools
- UoM systems should be more stable and resilient
- International students need better access to all University systems and tools
- We need better tools to engage directly with students, hear the student voice and collaborate
- We need improved systems for sharing effective practice
Technology
What our theme leads recommend, based on your feedback:
To enable Flexible Learning, we need to take a pedagogy-first approach, only using technology where it enhances the student experience. Our digital infrastructure should be streamlined and integrate seamlessly, with equitable access to hardware and software for staff and students.
Training and skills
Digital skills for students and staff, as well as training for staff to deliver blended learning
What staff and students told us:
- We require a consistent and accessible training toolkit integrated within course programmes for students, as well as a central training offer for staff with easy to find resources for the development of digital skills, delivery of blended learning and creating accessible content and learning
- We need the right training offer to enable students to develop their digital skills, built into curriculums + personalised training
- We should establish a community and mechanisms to share and evaluate effective practice
- Comprehensive digital learning support with a drop-in service and workshops to support staff
- We need to change our culture to give students and staff enough time to engage with the training offer
Training and skills
What our theme leads recommend, based on your feedback:
To enable Flexible Learning, we need to define the knowledge, competencies and skills that we want our learners and staff to attain. Within this framework, we should allow learners and staff to personalise their training to suit their needs, as well as building training and support into the student curriculum and staff progression and workload.
We need to establish ways to document and recognise digital development and put in place standardised tools and resources to support learners and staff, as well as enabling them to collaborate and share effective practice.
Assessment
What students and staff told us:
- Students should have greater input into assessment design
- Students want more choice over how they are assessed to suit different learning styles, as well as more formative feedback they can take forward
- Staff require more support for online assessments and improvements to technology to support assessments
- More continuous formative assessment focused on assessing ILOs (intended learning outcomes)
- Students want to see more authentic assessment that prepares them for application in the real world, aligned with workplaces (e.g. open book assessments)
- We should focus on designing more fair and inclusive assessments, including measures to safeguard against malpractice
- A library of effective practice and more assessment training, resources and support should be put in place to support staff
Assessment
What our theme leads recommend, based on your feedback:
To enable Flexible Learning, we need to encourage, facilitate and make space for conversation about assessment. We need to encourage staff to explore different forms of assessment that suit diverse learning styles and prepare our students for the world of work, with enhanced training and support for students and staff.
We need to support staff to design assessments that are authentic, inclusive, and constructively aligned with well-designed ILOs, and that minimise opportunities for malpractice.
Space on campus
What students and staff told us:
- Students and staff want to be able to see all spaces available to them with information on technology, the type of activity they are suitable for and how accessible they are
- We should make available more bookable campus spaces, including spaces for: group and private study; meetings; online work; privacy
- Commuter students require dedicated spaces on campus
- We need to improve Wi-fi and technology
- We need to enhance the accessibility of our physical campus estate
Space on campus
What our theme leads recommend, based on your feedback:
To enable Flexible Learning we will need to make more efficient use of our estate to ensure staff and students have access to spaces when they need them, equipped with the right technology to support their teaching and learning.
Innovation
What staff and students told us:
- We need better ways to collaborate and share effective practice
- We need to change our culture and put in place enough time and resource to support innovative teaching practice, as well as recognising and rewarding excellent teaching
- We need to better communicate when we have new technology or software available to us
- We should develop improved processes to enable staff and students to feedback on software and technology
- We should invest in space for VR, improved PC clusters, software enhancements
- We should explore more flexible pathways and learner journeys - stackable degrees, CPD, part-time study
- We should build on the success of UCIL and offer more joint/interdisciplinary projects across the University
Innovation
What our theme leads recommend, based on your feedback:
To enable Flexible Learning, we need to promote teaching excellence and support an innovative approach to course design and teaching and learning. We need to remove technological barriers by investing in tools and supporting resources.
We need to put in place mechanisms that allow greater collaboration and partnership working between students, staff and external partners, enabling the design of innovative programmes and units. We should establish new flexible pathways to learning, including micro credit courses, stackable degrees, part-time study and Continuous Professional Development (CPD).
Credits:
Created with images by Farknot Architect - "A group of young people sitting and talking together" • Rawpixel.com - "Connecting Connection Digital Device Wireless Concept" • vegefox.com - "media" • Seventyfour - "Waist up portrait of contemporary young woman pointing at whiteboard while teaching training course for students in class, copy space" • NaMaKuKi - "Pencil on answer sheets or Standardized test form with answers bubbled. multiple choice answer sheet" • Chinnapong - "Exam at school with student's taking educational admission test in class, thinking hard, writing answer in university classroom, education and world literacy day concept" • chartphoto - "Business man holding light bulbs, ideas of new ideas with innovative technology and creativity,New ideas with innovation and creativity concept," • Tom Merton/Caia Image - "Creative young business people examining prototype in meeting"