1. Creative Ways of Making Change
Sarah Kerton

2. Structure Why and how do course reps make change?
Why creative evaluation methods are useful
Some tools you might want to make use of
Thoughts and questions

3. What is a course rep?
Why did you become a course rep in the first place, or at least, why are you one now?
What do you want to achieve?
How are you going to achieve it?
How can being creative help?

4. Taking an outcomes approach
Outcomes are the changes, benefits, learning or other effects that actually occur as a result of
your activities.
They can be planned, unexpected, positive or negative.
They can also be about maintaining the status quo and preventing change (stopping a situation
getting worse).

5. Taking an outcomes approach: Why?
Ensures you are meeting the needs of the students you are working with
• Provides clear roles and sense of purpose
• Helps you identify what works and what doesn’t
• Helps you report to the union and the university
• Helps you raise awareness amongst students of your achievements

6. Why you might want to use creative methods….
A learning process
Gauging the value
Reflecting on what you are trying to achieve
Assessing how well you are succeeding
Identifying changes
Measuring the impact
Collecting and recording information
Keeping track of activity
Provide feedback on how things are going and inform decision-making

7. Tools to consult with… TOPIC: END OF COURSE EVALUATION
You want to consult with students on your course to see how they feel about their last module. They have filled in formal feedback forms from the uni but you want to develop some ideas to present to your tutor about how they can improve the course.

8. Body Mapping Get into groups of 3-4
Grab 3 large sheets of flipchart paper
Lay them on the floor together to form a big long sheet
In your group, one of you needs to volunteer to be drawn around, and lie down on the sheet

9. Body Mapping
Consider your pose when you are being drawn around – DRAW!
QUESTIONS:
What were the most inspiring parts of the module?
Which topics did you enjoy the most?
What did you feel was missing from your learning experience?

10. Body Mapping Why would we body map? It’s a bit odd…
Exactly. Evaluating a module in creative and different ways will bring about different results.
It gives students the opportunity to locate their own thoughts and emotions on their body and tackles language barriers

11. Tools to consult with… TOPIC: CAMPAIGNING FOR BETTER FACILITIES
You’ve spoken with other course reps in your faculty about improving the facilities in your building. You now need to go and talk to students and find out what changes they want to make. You’ve tried an , and stopping people in the foyer, but responses haven’t been very detailed

12. Mini Zine Take an A4 piece of paper Fold it like THIS……
PG 1: Cover for the ‘idea’
PG 2/3: What its like currently
PG 4: Why you are unhappy with that
PG 5: What you would change
PG 6/7: What it COULD be like
PG 8: Your name/student number/ contact details

13. Mini Zine Why would I use mini zines?
Collage and zines provide a cheap way for students to be as creative as they want – from writing a mini pamphlet to colouring in and collaging.
They are also great tools for long term reflective work – you might ask your coursemates to do a page per week about their lecture, for example.

14. Dot Voting Feedback on THIS session
Dot voting or ‘dotmocracy’ is using dots to collect levels of agreement on pre-given statements.
You can:
Give limited numbers of dots
Colour code/shape responses
Do dot-voting online

15. Dot Voting Using coloured pens: Green – Agree Yellow – Neutral
Red - Disagree
Respond to the questions on the flipchart…

16. Thoughts and Questions
If you have any other questions, or would like a pack of creative evaluation ideas by , please contact: