You Said, We Did
How your voice has made a difference
This page provides an opportunity to see the valuable feedback received from students across a wide range of communication channels, and to see what the OU has done in response.
Please note this video is now a couple of years old so some people no longer have the same title. The current Students Association leadership can be seen on their website.
Choose a topic from the drop-down list below to see how students can have an impact on their university experience and be empowered to help shape the University. Next time you are asked to give your opinion, you know that the OU is taking this feedback seriously and will respond.
You said...
You did not feel connected and felt that having a sense of belonging was not an essential part of your learning experience with the OU
We did...
We will work more closely with LAL Community buddies and Events champions to organise and promote more community-building events on LAL Study Home site.
We are in the process of recruiting Peer Support Volunteers amongst students who will help promote and run these events and self-help groups.
LAL central academics and staff tutors will continue to provide and promote interactive events on Student Hub live and take on board your feedback on what topics and activities you’d like to see featured.
Languages and Applied Linguistics
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You said...
You asked for one-to-one compulsory speaking sessions with the tutor
We did...
We are in the process of recruiting Peer Support Volunteers who are either native or competent speakers of the target language, or students who have completed the module to help coordinate and facilitate speaking sessions on Study Home site to promote cross module and cross level conversation groups.
We’ll be putting on extra catch-tutorials for slower-paced students (already offered in some modules).
This year, we are introducing our Peer Support Volunteers Badging Scheme. The hope is that this will give us a pool of students willing to facilitate conversation groups (amongst other activities).
On many module websites, under the Resources page, there is an Online Student Room which allows students to enter without tutor presence to practise speaking etc.
On the School’s Study Home site, there are two different types of rooms: the LAL Student Common Room and LAL Student Events Room which give students’ host rights. You can use these rooms to meet your fellow students across the school.
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You said...
You mentioned challenges of disability with regards to communication and challenges in relation to language learning
We did...
We are establishing more close working relationship with the Disability Support Team (DST) with a view to improve the communication between DST, Module Team and tutors. We will explore if Disability Support Team information can be provided on the Student Profile page (email, telephone number).
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You said...
You requested for designated tutor support for pastoral care for the whole learning journey
We did...
The School is supporting and advocating for the roll-out of the Personal Learning Advisor scheme, so that as many students as possible can benefit from it.
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You said...
You are not happy about mixed ability/language competence in tutorial group
We did...
We’ll be putting on extra catch-up tutorials for slower-paced students (already offered in some modules).
The new beginners’ modules will be working with pathways to account for different needs among learners.
Mixed abilities needs will be included as a theme in Associate Lecturer Staff Development workshops.
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You said...
There was confusion over where the assessment descriptors were and how marks were allocated.
We did...
Pointers were added in our module-specific induction programme to direct students to the right page, and screencast videos made to explain how they are used by tutors when marking and how students can make use of them for self-evaluation.
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You said...
You felt a lack of opportunity to practice and the feeling of being isolated
We did...
We set up an online room called LAL Student Common Room on Study Home site for you to host events so all the students in the School can attend.
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You said...
You were not sure about the function and use of assessment criteria and that both, assessment task briefings and criteria is confusing.
We did...
A few module teams have made the screencast films to explain how to make use of assessment criteria and other teams included this explanation in their online induction programmes.
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You said...
You would like the name of the language that you study to be explicitly stated in their qualification.
We did...
We created two joint language studies qualification: BA(Hons) Business and Management and Languages and BA (Hons) Law and Languages. Each of these is available with a choice of German, French or Spanish, and the language studied will be named in the award e.g. BA (Hons) Business Management and French/BA (Hons) Law and German. Other subjects combinations are currently being considered.
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You said...
Students do not always perceive the benefits of tutorials and suggested that tutor could help.
We did...
We gather testimonies from students, asking them to comment on the benefits of tutorials and put their responses on module websites.
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