Student feedback
Feedback from students is always welcome. You and your instructors may take your own initiatives to communicate with each other about what is working well and what could be improved. The chair of department is also regularly available to listen to student comments. However, there are two more formal mechanisms in place to ensure that student views can be expressed. These are:
The department does face constraints in responding to requests for curricular improvement. Speed of response is conditioned by the eighteen-month lead-time required for new units of study; content of response is conditioned by limited resources. However, we do listen seriously to what you tell us and respond when we can. Recent examples include the following:
- Chinese Table, a weekly hour when students get together informally to practice speaking Chinese in a social environment, was introduced partly in response to discussion at the first meeting with student representatives held in 2006.
- After consultation with students in Chinese 1B and Chinese 2B in 2006, Chinese 2A and Chinese 2B will still have five hours per week in 2007, but those hours will be spread over four days only.
- All full-time staff in Chinese Studies have been encouraged to phase in Web-CT support for the units of study that they coordinate.
- Approval has been received for the introduction, in 2008, of new units of study that will bridge the gap between Chinese 4B and units in which large amounts of Chinese literature are read in the original.
It is department policy that every unit of study is evaluated by students each time it is taught. Evaluation techniques vary, and instructors have some freedom to experiment. The commonest technique is the anonymous written survey administered at or near the end of the semester. Every semester, the School of Languages and Cultures decides which units of study are to be evaluated using forms supplied by the Institute of Teaching and Learning (ITL). Coordinators of other units are free to choose between using ITL forms and designing their own forms - or even both. Coordinator-designed forms have the advantage of enabling the coordinator to ask about the success of specific experiments. They are thus a valuable supplement to the official forms.
It is University policy that coordinators should provide a written response to student feedback. In the School of Languages and Cultures, this will be done via the online unit-of-study outlines.
The student representative system provides an additional channel of communication between students and staff. One student representative is elected for each unit of study; these representatives in turn elect a departmental representative to serve on the Board of the School Languages and Cultures.
Within the department, unit of study representatives play two important roles. First, they communicate student concerns about specific aspects of teaching and learning in individual units of study directly to the responsible coordinator. Either the coordinator or the student representative may take the initiative to start a conversation.
Second, student representatives attend departmental staff-student liaison meetings. The main purpose of these meetings is discussion of the program as a whole, including possible improvements. Sometimes there are specific issues on which the department seeks student opinion. And sometimes students want to discuss student initiatives. One meeting is usually held per semester, usually on a Thursday afternoon from 4.00 to 5.00 p.m.
Elections for student representatives are carried out in class during the first month of each semester. Please think about whom you would like to nominate and obtain that person's consent. You may nominate yourself.
