'Student success' office gets a director

A memo yesterday announced the official creation of the “office of student success” that has been under discussion on campus for the past several months and was described in a briefing to the university’s governing bodies in June.

“I am pleased to announce the establishment of the University of Waterloo Student Success Office and the appointment of Sean Van Koughnett (left) as its Director,” said the memo, distributed by interim associate provost (student services) Bud Walker.

He added: “The Student Success Office is a new entity responsible for a number of student success initiatives including learning support, new-student transition, student development, support for international students, student developed technology, and student entrepreneurship support.”

Creating the new office is one of the specific outcomes of a discussion of student services that took place during the executive retreat at Kempenfelt Bay last spring. It is intended to coordinate programs — some already existing, some new — to provide resources that will help students stay in university, flourish and get the most out of their studies. That could include everything from career guidance to better electronic tools, as well as the “transition” from high school to first-year success.

Such programs are housed now in departments from co-op and career services to Waterloo International, the student life office, VeloCity, information systems and technology, the registrar’s office, counselling services and others. The new office’s web site indicates that already the English Language Proficiency Program, the Student Life Office, support for international students, and VeloCity are included in it.

Said a report in June from Feridun Hamdullahpur, then provost and now the university’s president: “As further emphasis on students and their success is essential to achieving the Sixth Decade Plan goals, we must further our efforts to establishing a student success culture across the campus. A report prepared by the Student Services committee concluded that for a student success culture, we must achieve increased student satisfaction with the experience at UW, improved student retention rates and effective competitive approaches to attract high quality students; adaptation to changing demographic conditions of a younger and more culturally diverse student body that is in need of support; student success orientation linked to maintenance of life-long connections with alumni; development of the ‘whole student’ from academic, experiential and social/cultural perspectives.”

Walker’s memo noted that Van Koughnett “has been with the University of Waterloo since 2001, initially as Development Officer for the Faculty of Science, as Assistant Registrar for the Faculty of Mathematics and the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences, as Director of the Graphic Services department and as the Director of VeloCity.

“Sean has Bachelor and Master degrees from the University of Waterloo. He lives in Waterloo with his wife, Denise, and their family of five children. While an undergraduate student in economics Sean was a five-time co-captain of the UW basketball team, five time MVP and a member of Canada’s national team.

“Sean brings to the job a passion for UW, deep appreciation for the student experience, a penchant for creativity and innovation, and a breadth of management experience.”

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Yesterday brought the first frost, and no doubt winter is on the way. “Are you looking for a place to live during the winter term?” asks a note from Bronwyn Burchell, marketing coordinator for housing and residences. “Residence can put you on the fast track to success. Stay close to class and enjoy the conveniences that residence has to offer. No landlords, no maintenance, no hassles – only affordable, stress-free living. Residence life is a total experience — from academic support to events and leadership opportunities, residence provides a fun and supportive environment for all students to fit in and succeed. Whether you’re on an academic term or a work term, one-term contracts are available.” There are separate online applications for upper-year and first-year students.

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Blended approach to teaching psych course

Jane Holbrook of the Centre for Teaching Excellence writes in the centre’s newsletter, Teaching Matters

In the fall term of 2009, the 85 students enrolled in Psych 340 were offered a new experience: they were introduced to course concepts before their Wednesday evening class through online lectures and then spent most of their class time in discussion with their peers and working in small groups. Professor John Michela, who had been redesigning this course gradually for several terms, had created a truly “blended” course.

Psych 340, Training and Development, addresses the major aspects of training including concepts of learning and motivation relevant to training, training methods, and special uses of training. John had designed the course so that his students engaged in hands-on, authentic learning activities that would help them experience the actual development of training materials and teaching methods. However, the evening time slot for the course presented challenges.

The initial dilemma was whether he should give his weekly quiz and lecture in the second half of the once per week session (preparing students for the in-class activities that occurred in the first half of the next class), or give the quiz and lecture in the first half of the class and use the second half for the in-class group activities that related to concepts that had been covered the week before. Both scenarios presented difficulties for the flow and the organization of the concepts and activities, but ultimately the key problem was that students were tired and disengaged by the second half of the class session no matter what the order.

“Everything falls into place with the blended approach”, says John. “The quizzes are online too, so this source of tension, distraction, and maybe a little hostility is gone from the class period. Lectures are online, so people don't have the ‘tired out’ issue (at least if they plan their time) and they can listen to the lecture to initiate the next ‘unit’ of material instead of experiencing the interspersing in the old system. The in-class activity is nearly all we do when we meet as a class, so its centrality is now clear, leading to better engagement.”

For John Michela, the road to a rejuvenated blended Psych 340 included participation in CTE‘s four day course redesign workshop, the Teaching Excellence Academy. When John attended the TEA in April 2008 he had already made his classes more interactive through group work and suspected that he would have to use technology to overcome some of the challenges of teaching the course. “TEA gave me the confidence to do what I had been thinking of doing, along with framing it better (‘active learning’ and the concept map as the centrepiece for the course description, for example).”

John hadn't heard the term “blended learning” before but quickly saw how online presentations and quizzes presented through UW-ACE could help him prepare the students for active learning in classroom. The online lectures were created using Adobe Presenter — a software package that combines audio and PowerPoint to create narrated voice-over slide presentations. The evening classes are now shorter and the students are fully engaged throughout the whole class.

John spent long hours last fall preparing scripts for his online lectures and coordinating the PowerPoint animations with his narration. His goal was to create well-paced and succinct online lectures that presented the clearest possible explanation of the course concepts. Was it worth it? We used an online questionnaire after the course to gather feedback from students. Students reported that participating in face-to-face project work in small groups was helpful to their learning, that being able to control the pace and place of learning with the online lectures was beneficial, and that the course components were well integrated.

John notes that although student satisfaction ratings were definitely higher compared with previous years, the final exam scores were only marginally higher. Overall, the experience was a positive one for both John and the students and this fall over one hundred students will participate in this blended course.

To see examples of other blended courses that are offered at Waterloo please go to the CTE website. For a sample of John‘s online lectures go to Psych 340. CTE will be offering a one-day workshop on designing blended courses on Friday, November 5.

CAR

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