As mentioned before the Engagement/Touchpoint plan (section: 2.1.3) is a guiding document on the minimum points to connect with students. But just because you post a thread in the forums (or message a student directly), doesn’t mean students will post back. They might engage by only reading it, and not post due to many reasons (lack of knowledge on the content, underconfident in ability, tired and just happy to read/lurk, nervous about being the first one to reply).
The point is to make the Engagement points fun, light, and personal and friendly but always content and community focused. Think about the Think-Pair-Share strategy used by primary school teachers. This strategy can be adapted to an online environment and further still to an asynchronous online learning environment. An adaption would be to ask them to think, then pair up with another student in the intake (or their colleagues, friend, family, whānau etc) and then share what the pair thinks.
- Reading link
- Video Link Asynchronous learning information section at 0.55sec)
Another adaptation would be the Background Knowledge Probe strategy.
There are lots of ideas online and on YouTube. Just have a quick search and see what could be adapted to Yoobee Online and our environment. Try this as a starting point.
How to keep/monitor online students' engagement
Daily
- Review the messages and forums for posts that you need to respond to.
- Consider where in the programme the students are and add extra engagement points. The Engagement/Touchpoint plan is just a guide to build on.
- Use the commonly asked questions, problems, issues to develop the content further. You may be adding material to support questions, so put that in the Content development plan too.
- For emails that come to you that have information that would be useful and should be shared, suggest that the student post a message to the intake and get people’s thoughts. Or you ask if you can post in the forum for others to comment. Remember only you can start a thread in a forum.
- Review the PowerBi report for Online Student Engagement – log ins, activity etc. Remember to use the drop-down menu to hone in to see only the intake you are focusing in on.
Weekly
- Review the Engagement/Touchpoint plan – what should be posted, what could be posted? What material could be adapted to make it more engaging for this intake? Remember each intake differs and therefore interesting focus issues might change as well.
- Where there is lack of engagement, investigate proactively – consider the tone of your investigation...not in a “mothering, authoritarian, teacher” way, but in a mentor/facilitator way. i.e. “Is everything ok, I noticed you have not logged in for X days” rather than “You haven’t logged in. Why?”. Remember the students are humans first, students second; life issues sometimes take priority and that is ok. It is when life issues overtake study where we have problems.
See section 2.1.4 for more information on the support we offer students.
See section 2.1.5 for more information on who to contact for student issues.
What is engagement?
Engagement is the connection or interaction of the student with their learning of the content. It mostly sits around learning the content knowledge and skills but it is also about helping students see their role in their learning: their learning styles and strategies. When students look at this aspect, it spills into how they learn and using those tools when they go into industry. Both learning about content and learning are lifelong skills.
Remember in an asynchronous environment, not all will engage and be visible. The students control how much they want to be involved. The idea behind this is that the tutor creates opportunities to get involved. The more people will join, the more a tutor can facilitate the students connecting, supporting each. The engagement pieces are a catalyst.
Why is it important?
Basically a learner is an active consumer of knowledge and skills, and the educator's role has shifted to be a facilitator, creating opportunities for the students to be active.
Learning is now not a thing to receive, but something to be active in. It is not a case of listen and regurgitate the boxed set of skills or knowledge, but to take the skills/knowledge and apply it to different situations and contexts. The role of the learner is less passive. However, it is difficult for students to see this, and therefore engaging them into this practice is the way educators approach this pedagogical shift.
How to create engagement
- Refer to Online Tutor Induction Section: 1.3.1
- Google search “Creating engagement in an asynchronous.....” Don’t discount primary or secondary school resources, adapt for adult learners and your context.
- Ask students – they are the ones that are consuming the content, they can tell you what tasks, activities are interesting, boring, etc. Don’t discount one type of activity because one student says “Nah!”. Adapt it, try it again with a different group. i.e. Reflect and connect on what worked/didn’t work, why and how to adjust.
- Share ideas/Ask other tutors – different tutors do things differently. Ask them how they do it, adapt for your style or do it their way and see what happens.
- Read the ideas below, experiment.
Tools for engagement: - You, students, alumni, industry speakers, other tutors/students
- Forums/threads
- Live sessions
- Embedded resources (links within) i.e. Microsoft forms for a poll, any open source tools or content
- External resources (links to the web)
Engagement ideas
These are the tasks and activities that could be delivered by the tools above. Italics is the idea to communicate to students, no italics are those that you have to develop for your context. These don’t all have to lead by you. Empower the students to take leadership.
| Task/Activity | Ideas |
|---|---|
| A poll |
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| Variety of ways to do the same thing |
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| KWL (Know, Want-to-know, Learned) chart |
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Gamifying things |
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| A quiz/competition |
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| Reflection time |
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| A class meet up |
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| Gallery or Exhibition Space |
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| A communal space, sharing and caring space |
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| Regular feedback |
|
Further resource
An 18 minute Youtube video on engaging students online
Before reading this section, please read the other sections around assessment.
Solutions to situations arising around assessments are partially created on the spot by you as each situation is different. The following is an "In General" situations with solutions. However, if in doubt, ask your Team Leader for advice.
| Student fails to submit the assessment |
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| Student submits but gets a resub |
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| Student communicates (the next day) that a technical issue arose on submission day |
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| Student communicates that extenuating circumstances meant that they could not submit. |
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| Student has completed all three attempts for an assessment |
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| Student says they don’t understand the feedback provided |
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| Student says they didn’t know the assessment was due |
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In the SELMA platform, we input all notes pertaining to a students: these could be pastoral care notes, attendance (on holiday, not logging on to Yoobee Online etc) or academic notes.
Often when there is a student who has an issue that can impact their learning, they contact whoever is closest or they know/trust. When we follow the correct process in SELMA, it will allow us to follow up and track the issue and will alert the wider team, as they will often play a role in helping resolve the issue.
This process is also designed so each of the team knows who plays a part in the student’s journey or who to contact if an issue arises. Students contact whoever is closest or they know/trust, so this means issues can be passed on to the appropriate person.
Below is a guide of common issues and if we should track and input them into SELMA.
| YES Put into SELMA/ Track |
NO Don't put into SELMA / Don't track |
|---|---|
| A death in the family, whānau, close friend etc. | The student’s cat died |
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Incidents where a student may be upset/occupied: |
Lack of login after your forum post 2 days ago |
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Assessment issues: |
Asking general questions around the content or assessment |
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Engagement issues: |
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| Flags raised by comments in forums/messages etc. |
Events in SELMA
Notes in SELMA are called events.
Most of your notes/events in SELMA will have the heading Academic notes. You do not need to write the name nor date in the text as that is created automatically when you save the note/event.
The notes/events by other people will also be of your interest.
Learning Support will create their own notes/events for you to be aware of what they are doing to support the student.
- Once you have entered a note/event and you have follow up information, then just edit the note/event rather than create a new note/event.
- It is much easier for the review process to see all actions within one note/event. Keep each issue on separate notes/events.
- Follow up when the issue is not closed. This can easily be done by assigning the note/event to the person who needs to follow up. It could be yourself.
- Once closed – perhaps edit the note/event to close the issue.
- An event/note can only take 1 attachment, so please either ensure the latest attachment contains all the previous information, or make a new note/event.
As a general rule use the following event/note types for these situations
- QTime - for QTime
- Academic - any academic related issues
- Pastoral care - for wellbeing issues
- Attendance - use for logging in issues, usually done by the Academic Administrator
- Notes - any admin, deferral, withdrawal, APC letters
- Learning support - anything that is linked to learning, not academic or wellbeing i.e. SAR student, LSP discussions
For more SELMA info:
- See Section 2.5.1
- All the latest, up to date information about SELMA is stored here. (You must be logged into the SELMA User Guides for NZMA & NZST Teams to be able to view this link. Please ask your Team Leader to join you if you are not already.)
