Improving Student Learning Experiences at the Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

In 2006, Monash’s newly created Centre for the Advancement of Learning and Teaching (CALT) with the Centre for Higher Education Quality (CHEQ) began a major strategic development initiative, the Systematic Improvement Strategy in Response to Unit Evaluation Data project. The project involves CHEQ and CALT working collaboratively with faculties across Monash to achieve improvements in student satisfaction levels based on unit evaluation data.

Prior to the commencement of Semester 2 2006, the Victorian faculty of Pharmacy agreed to participate in a pilot project.

Student feedback has played a central role in the way in which the project has been conceived and conducted at the Victorian faculty of Pharmacy. Students have contributed to the project through their engagement in the University’s unit evaluation strategy and also their contribution to a number of focus group interviews about the particular units.

The project has seen changes implemented in a number of units and this has been complemented by the Victorian faculty of Pharmacy’s existing student learning support program conducted by Ms Kara Gilbert, and a range of academic staff development initiatives over the semester facilitated by Ms Gillian Lueckenhausen from CALT.

This project has been an important initiative and highlights the value that the faculty places on engaging students in feedback to improve its programs and student learning experiences.

With this in mind, we encourage all students to complete the Semester Two Course Unit Evaluation surveys. You will have been notified by e-mail this week about the surveys and this will be followed by reminder emails during the evaluation period.  The surveys will not take long to complete and we will be systematically following up on the information you provide in the surveys.  It is important, therefore, that as many students as possible complete the surveys.

Furthermore, if you are in one of the units in which focus group interviews are being conducted, we urge you to volunteer to participate in the interviews – your feedback on your course unit experience is invaluable and will help to complement the survey data.

Thanks to the student body for their ongoing contribution to the very important unit evaluation surveys that the University conducts each semester and we encourage you to continue to contribute in that way and to be involved in any other evaluation work that the faculty undertakes.

Professor Louis Roller and Dr Christine Spratt (CALT)