Continuous Module Dialogue: what is it and does it really work?

Whilst only one of a suite of tools we are using at UCL to improve the student voice, Continuous Module Dialogue (CMD) has an important role to play and can have an immediate impact on the student experience. 

It replaces our old-style Student Evaluation Questionnaires (SEQs), which really didn’t work very well for a number of reasons: poor response rate; increased survey fatigue; difficult to action in a timely manner; difficult to close-the-loop for the current cohort etc. 

Shifting the focus to student-staff collaboration 

Conversely, CMD shifts the focus away from a reporting exercise, towards a participative student-staff collaboration, which aims to improve the module. To help structure the dialogue (and keep it brief), you might like to make use of UCL’s Mentimeter templates. (If Mentimeter isn’t for you, there are other options to facilitate continuous module dialogue.) 

Don’t worry if you’ve not used Mentimeter before, it’s actually surprisingly quick and easy to set up and UCL Arena has made a simple step-by-step guide to get you started. You can edit the questions, remove any that aren’t relevant and add some of your own, but try not to ask too many questions and make sure to keep them short. In class, it works best if you use the Mentimeter responses to frame the conversation – it’s not simply another survey for the sake survey’s sake!  

Not everything can be solved there and then, but most miscommunications can be quickly clarified, and many issues can be addressed in a timely manner for your current students to benefit. For the more challenging or cross-cutting issues that could take longer to address, you may consider working in partnership with your students, for example by applying for a funded UCL ChangeMakers project.