Biosciences Takeover Week: Back to Pen and Paper: Using a Physical Suggestion Box to Amplify our Students’ Voices
by Dr Rebecca Barnes, Dr Polly Gravells, Dr Emma Hughes, Katie Oxley, Alwin Thomas
The start of a new Semester brings a surge of energy across staff and students, and with it, high engagement with Student Voice. As we are sure is a familiar pattern across the University, the initial peak in students letting us know their ideas, opinions and experiences through Student Voice decreases, and the responses in our Student Voice Google form - and therefore the agenda for Student Staff Committee (SSC) meetings - starts to look a little dry, despite having over 100 academic reps across the School, and reminders in lectures, tutorials and (especially) into students’ inboxes.
In late 2023, we put our heads together to come up with new ways we could ensure the engagement with, and visibility of, Student Voice across the Academic Year. The solution (sparked by a suggestion by colleague Liz Alvey)? A carefully hand-crafted suggestion box!
In February 2024, the suggestion box was hosted in Krebs Cafe and taken around teaching laboratories by the SSC Reps (Katie, Alwin, Grace, Miriam, Jack, Agnes and Saoirse) and Academic Leads. To encourage engagement, we did a shout-out in laboratory sessions reminding students about Student Voice and the SSC, and offered entry to a prize draw with the chance to win a £25 voucher in exchange for providing anonymous feedback (we retained anonymity by adding names separately to comments) on their educational experience in Biosciences.
Over the course of a week, we managed to collect over 100 comments from first year students through to PGT students. Every comment was reviewed, actioned, and many contributed to the agenda for the SSC meeting in March. Discussions from this SSC meeting fed directly into some major changes across the School of Biosciences. In assessment, the consistency of wording across marking rubrics for all modules has been implemented, and major changes in the curriculum design and delivery of our first and second year (technical and transferable) skills modules have taken place. Interestingly, there was a higher proportion of positive feedback compared to comments coming from our usual methods, allowing us to find some areas of good practice as well as problems to address.
We were also delighted to see a significant increase in the number of positive responses in the 2024 National Student Survey when final year students were asked about Student Voice, specifically that students’ opinions about their course are valued by staff, and how clear it is that students’ feedback on the course is acted on.
Increasing our visibility and active engagement with Biosciences students continues to be our major goal this academic year. The suggestion box has been embedded into our toolkit and will be used ahead of the SSC meetings. Another analogue method we are trialling this year is the use of new notice boards outside the main Biosciences teaching labs where high footfall from our students will hopefully increase our visibility. Finally, we have set up a new Student Voice Instagram account to allow SSC meeting reminders and news to be shared by the Academic Student Societies and reach their wider followers.
Dr Rebecca Barnes, Dr Polly Gravells, and Dr Emma Hughes are Teaching Specialists and Academic Leads for the School of Biosciences Student Voice. Katie Oxley and Alwin Thomas are Student Voice representatives in the School of Biosciences. School of Biosciences Student Voice Google Site