· Web viewHowever, this university-wide systematic approach has had some teething problems. An important part of the systematic approach was to enable central processing of data

To All Unit and Course Coordinators

From Natalie Brown – Director, Academic Quality & TILT

Date 19 June, 2017

Subject Early engagement initiative – Semester 2, 2017

Background

As you are aware the University has introduced a systematic approach to encourage early engagement of students. This was endorsed by Academic Senate and has a number of important purposes, related to pedagogy, student support and administration.

Pedagogy:

1. It is pedagogically sound to actively and purposefully engage students early into their learning; this sets the scene for what is to follow and allows students to get an early understanding of the requirements of the unit.

2. A meaningful activity early in the unit can assist you to identify students who may benefit from additional support at a stage when it can be most helpful.

3. A required activity early in the unit can prompt students who are unsure of whether they wish to continue with the unit or change to another, to withdraw or seek advice to make these changes.

Student support:

4. As a means of initial support, intelligent agents can be set up in MyLO to give students a ‘nudge’ to engage, or to reach out to students who have had some difficulty in completing early tasks. This can complement other mechanisms of support offered by teaching staff or act as early intervention.

5. As a second step, systematically recording student engagement with early tasks can be used to inform proactive intervention for students at risk. In high priority units (usually large / core first year units with high failure /attrition rates, chosen in consultation with Academic Directors/ADLTs) this work can be undertaken by the Student Retention and Success team. In other cases it will need to be undertaken by teaching staff, or through direct referral to student advisors and/or other central support services.

Administration:

6. Consistent recording of data is important to demonstrate we are meeting our obligation under the Higher Education Standards framework for monitoring student progress and ensuring we use Commonwealth funds appropriately.

7. Students who are not engaged can be more easily identified, encouraged to withdraw before census date or centrally withdrawn prior to having a failure recorded on their academic transcript.

I acknowledge that early engagement activities that meet our obligations to our students are already present in many units. It is entirely appropriate that the specific engagement activities in a unit are designed by the unit coordinator or teaching team to best meet the requirements of the individual unit. The way in which meaningful engagement is evaluated in individual units is an academic decision made in connection with the learning outcomes of the unit, and the learning activities that have been designed to develop these. This has not changed.

What has changed is that staff have been requested to record evidence of this engagement through MyLO. Please let me assure you that the best way to record student engagement was the subject of a great deal of consideration before MyLO was decided upon. This decision was made to reflect our learning model (and the requirement for use of MyLO in all units) and the ability to use the intelligent agents and other automations to reduce administrative effort for teaching staff. As a reminder, all of this information is included in the central Unit Outline template, which also provides a link to resources to assist in setting up the MyLO gradebook.

However, this university-wide systematic approach has had some teething problems. An important part of the systematic approach was to enable central processing of data to assist unit coordinators in identifying and managing students who would benefit from additional support or were disengaged from their study. Unfortunately, for Semester 1 this process was hindered by limitations of the MyLO system for bulk extraction of data and by the lack of consistent format, naming and set-up of the engagement tasks in the grades tool.

Semester 2 process

In light of the aforementioned issues, we will not have a central data extraction process in place for Semester 2 but we are working towards a central extraction process for 2018. Hence we are requesting that all unit coordinators establish student engagement grade items in MyLO.

Accordingly, we provide the following guidance:

1. In accordance with the Unit Outline template, units should include two early engagement tasks before the end of week 4. Unit Coordinators (UC) will be responsible for determining the nature of these tasks.

2. Each of these tasks should be set up as a grade item in MyLO. To identify which of the MyLO tasks are the designated engagement tasks, they should be named as appropriate but with #SEA at the end of the name (e.g. Week 1 Quiz #SEA). This will enable easier analysis from 2018 when the system issues are fixed. (The #SEA suffix can be appended to any title that is used by the UC). Please note these tasks do not need to be formally assessed. However, if you already have a low stakes assessment task prior to week 4 in your unit, this can certainly be tagged as an engagement task through adding #SEA to the title in MyLO.

3. UCs should use student performance on the two early engagement tasks to identify any students who require support or who are not engaged. We strongly encourage setting up intelligent agents in MyLO to prompt students to complete the tasks, or to seek support.

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4. In addition to using automated prompts, UCs can follow up identified students to encourage engagement, seeking of support or withdrawal before census date (as would be the normal process). I note that some schools have their own processes to assist individual unit coordinators, and if so, I would expect these will be actioned at this point.

5. There are a number of units that are already followed up by the Student Retention and Success team. In the case of these units, the follow up contact with identified students will be carried out by this team. If you are unsure whether your unit is included in this group, please check with your Associate Dean (Learning and Teaching).

6. In week 6, we will ask UCs submit a list of students assessed as not engaged to a central email address ([email protected]). (If there is a school process, these lists can be sent by the School).

7. Student Operations will email students and advise that they have been withdrawn from the unit (they will be awarded a Withdrawal without Academic Penalty [WW] from the unit). This process will be complete by the end of week 7.

8. The Student Retention and Success team will aim to contact students who have been withdrawn from part of their enrolment (ie not all units) via this process. This will provide an opportunity to determine specific support needs for their remaining enrolment. In the first instance to it will be necessary to prioritise first year and high risk cohorts.

9. At the end of the academic year Student Operations will review at a whole-of-student level and contact students who are assessed as not engaged across all their enrolled load (i.e. all WW and / or WN results), to notify them that their enrolment has been cancelled. These actions are in accordance with the terms and conditions of enrolment.

QUESTIONS?

Any questions on this process can be emailed to [email protected].

I thank you for your work to date, and look forward to your continued assistance with this important process.

Natalie Brown Director, Academic Quality & TILT

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