Showing posts with label Retention. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Retention. Show all posts

Monday, December 14, 2020

How to Use Canvas to NUDGE Students to Complete Assignments


I am a TOTAL fan of the "message students who" feature on Canvas. Our university utilizes Canvas as our learning management platform. With this feature, I can message students who...

have not completed assignments
have not communicated with me
have an average below a certain threshold
have an average ABOVE a certain threshold
have done a STELLAR job on assignments
and MORE

I use this feature for EVERYTHING! You should definitely try it out! It is free and I've convinced other faculty to use it as well!

Check out my book - Retaining College Students Using Technology: A Guidebook for Student Affairs and Academic Affairs Professionals.

Remember to order copies for your team as well!

Interested in a specific student success topic or do you need a speaker for an upcoming conference? Contact me via direct message on Twitter or join our Student Success and Retention Institute - Learning Community on Facebook!

Thanks for visiting! 

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
Professor of Communication
Executive Director of the Texas Social Media Research Institute & Rural Communication Institute

My Social Media Channels!
Remember to Follow Me on Twitter! @drjtedwards
I Always Post Higher Education Videos on YouTube
Find Me on Instagram
Engage with Me on Facebook!
Watch My Videos on Twitter Live - http://www.periscope.com/drjtedwards/
Email Me! I am PR Friendly! - jennifertedwards@gmail.com

Monday, October 22, 2018

Enhanced Faculty Features on the EAB Navigate System


If your campus utilizes the Education Advisory Board's Navigate platform (formerly the Student Success Collaborative), you are extremely lucky. This platform enables faculty, staff, and students to engage electronically with one another. From a Communication Professor's perspective, it is important for me to emphasize that the Student Success Collaborative (Navigate) is one of the most easy student success technology platforms to navigate (no pun intended) for faculty and staff. 

The Student Success Collaborative (Navigate) is an innovative student success technology platform that can enable campuses to provide outreach to students and faculty, measure this outreach, and to make evidence-based decisions about the emerging data. For campuses who want to connect with their students and benchmark the results, the Education Advisory Board's Navigate platform is one of the best technologies for your campus.


I am eager to discover the newly updated features of the Starfish platform again and I welcome the opportunity to discover this with another campus who wants to invite me as a student success technology consultant.

If your campus is considering how they can integrate a new student success technology for their students, faculty, and staff, please contact me and I will be happy to help. Student success has been why research field for the past 15 years and I am excited about the new technology innovations that are occurring in the higher education field.

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
Higher Education Speaker and Researcher

My Social Media Channels!
Remember to Follow Me on Twitter! @drjtedwards
Remember to Subscribe to Me on YOUTUBE
My Research Interests: Customer Service and Social Media, Higher Education Retention, and Millennials at Work
Instagram - http://www.instagram.com/drjtedwards/
Facebook - Facebook!
If You Love Periscope as Much as I Do...Follow Me There! - http://www.periscope.com/drjtedwards/
Email Me! I am PR Friendly! - jennifertedwards@gmail.com

Interested in a specific student success topic or do you need a speaker for an upcoming conference? Contact me via direct message on Twitter or join our Student Success Communication and Technology Institute on Facebook!

Thanks for visiting! 

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
Higher Education Speaker and Researcher

My Social Media Channels!
Remember to Follow Me on Twitter! @drjtedwards
I Always Post Higher Education Videos on YouTube
Find Me on Instagram
Engage with Me on Facebook!
Watch My Videos on Twitter Live - http://www.periscope.com/drjtedwards/
Email Me! I am PR Friendly! - jennifertedwards@gmail.com
My Research Interests: Customer Service and Social Media, Higher Education Retention, and Millennials at Work

Monday, September 17, 2018

Using the Education Advisory Board's Navigate Platform to Impact Student Success and Retention

If your campus utilizes the Education Advisory Board's Navigate platform (formerly the Student Success Collaborative), you are extremely lucky. This platform enables faculty, staff, and students to engage electronically with one another. From a Communication Professor's perspective, it is important for me to emphasize that the Student Success Collaborative (Navigate) is one of the most easy student success technology platforms to navigate (no pun intended) for faculty and staff. 


The Student Success Collaborative (Navigate) is an innovative student success technology platform that can enable campuses to provide outreach to students and faculty, measure this outreach, and to make evidence-based decisions about the emerging data. For campuses who want to connect with their students and benchmark the results, the Education Advisory Board's Navigate platform is one of the best technologies for your campus.




Retention, Student Success, Student Success Collaborative, Education Advisory Board, Navigate, How to Use EAB, Retention, 60X30TX, Higher Education, Student Affairs, Student Services

Here's a comparison between the features of Navigate and the Starfish platform:

Starfish
EAB (Navigate)
We Can Form Appointment Campaigns
We Can Send Email to Students
We Can Send Email to Students
We Can See a Realistic Preview for Each Student
We Can See the Public Notes for Each Student
We Can Perform Advanced Searches and Analytics
Faculty Log-In to Refer Their Students to Early Alert
Faculty Never Have to Log-On to Refer Their Students
Create Your Own Cohort
Create Your Own Cohort
Student’s Picture is Displayed
 Student’s Picture is Displayed
We Can View Midterm Grades and Final Grades

I am eager to discover the newly updated features of the Starfish platform again and I welcome the opportunity to discover this with another campus who wants to invite me as a student success technology consultant.

If your campus is considering how they can integrate a new student success technology for their students, faculty, and staff, please contact me and I will be happy to help. Student success has been why research field for the past 15 years and I am excited about the new technology innovations that are occurring in the higher education field.

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards

Higher Education Speaker and Researcher

My Social Media Channels!

Remember to Follow Me on Twitter! @drjtedwards
Remember to Subscribe to Me on YOUTUBE
My Research Interests: Customer Service and Social Media, Higher Education Retention, and Millennials at Work
Instagram - http://www.instagram.com/drjtedwards/
Facebook - Facebook!
If You Love Periscope as Much as I Do...Follow Me There! - http://www.periscope.com/drjtedwards/
Email Me! I am PR Friendly! - jennifertedwards@gmail.com

Monday, September 10, 2018

Free Report - Institutions' Use of Data and Analytics for Student Success


If you love higher education technology and data analytics as much as I do, you will love this report from NASPA (The National Association of Student Personnel Administrators), Educause, and the Association for Institutional Research. This report was written by Amelia Parnell, Darlena Jones, Alexis Wesaw, and D. Christopher Brooks.

The report contains the following:

Executive Summary

Discussion of Findings

Part I: Types of Student Success Data Projects

Part II: Structures in Place

Part III: Level of Coordination

Part IV: Programs, Interventions, and Outcomes

Implications and Recommendations

References

The report also includes a methodology, additional resources, and acknowledgements.

Here are the recommendations from the study:

Recommendation 1: Identify and expand institutionally appropriate roles for IR, IT, and student affairs.

Recommendation 2: Transcend or remove certain organizational silos to improve communication across all position levels.

Recommendation 3: Prioritize measuring student outcomes.

Recommendation 4: Increase the use of qualitative data, especially from students.

My reflection: This report was great and included many institutions. However, as a higher education researcher and former higher education administrator, I think the report would benefit greatly from numerous reflections from higher education adminstrators.

For example, the first recommendation highlights the expansion of institutionally appropriate roles, but most institutions have very limited budgets that cannot accommodate the expansion of positions or add additional responsibilities to roles.

Also, I recommend that institutions provide a set of guidelines for effective communication with students (for student retention efforts), but I am not a proponent of large communication committees or councils. The formation of these groups can slow down progress for retention. Sometimes these councils that usually consist of individuals from institutional research, institutional technology, student affairs, enrollment management, and academic affairs and exist to control the distribution of messages to students.

Also, I wanted to share this infographic that I created about Student Success Technology.


Read the report, view the infographic and digest the information. Feel free to write about the report during the comment box! I would love to read it!

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
Higher Education Speaker and Researcher

My Social Media Channels!
Remember to Follow Me on Twitter! @drjtedwards
Remember to Subscribe to Me on YOUTUBE
My Research Interests: Customer Service and Social Media, Higher Education Retention, and Millennials at Work
Instagram - http://www.instagram.com/drjtedwards/
Facebook - Facebook!
If You Love Periscope as Much as I Do...Follow Me There! - http://www.periscope.com/drjtedwards/
Email Me! I am PR Friendly! - jennifertedwards@gmail.com

Friday, September 7, 2018

Three Student Success Action Items for Student Success Collaborative and Navigate Professionals!


If your campus utilizes the Student Success Collaborative (Navigate) platform, consider yourself to be extremely lucky! We had a few awesome training sessions at my university and I was incredibly lucky to facilitate these sessions for the faculty, staff, and students at my university and also Texas A&M University's advising team.

We had several sessions that focused on the features of the Navigate platform. Yes, I know that the Education Advisory Board company will continue to update the platform, but the basic components of the platform will remain the same (I hope). The components are easy for the faculty, staff, and students to navigate, but these important individuals at the university also need special reminders about the key clicks they need to make to "make things happen" on the platform.

So, here are three things that faculty, staff, and students at higher education institutions (colleges and universities) need to know in order to effectively navigate the platforms.

Action Item 1 - How to Boost Your Student Success Collaborative Campaign (2-3 Days After Sending the Invitation)



Action Item 2 - How to Schedule an Advising Appointment on EAB Navigate (formerly the Student Success Collaborative)



Action Item 3 - How to Create Tutoring Appointments on EAB Navigate (formerly the Student Success Collaborative)


Enjoy these three action items and please let me know if you have any questions. I will be happy to help! My contact information is listed below.

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
Higher Education Speaker and Researcher

My Social Media Channels!
Remember to Follow Me on Twitter! @drjtedwards
Remember to Subscribe to Me on YOUTUBE
My Research Interests: Customer Service and Social Media, Higher Education Retention, and Millennials at Work
Instagram - http://www.instagram.com/drjtedwards/
Facebook - Facebook!
If You Love Periscope as Much as I Do...Follow Me There! - http://www.periscope.com/drjtedwards/
Email Me! I am PR Friendly! - jennifertedwards@gmail.com

Friday, August 31, 2018

Transition Week - First-Time in College Tips for Freshmen Students


When the beginning of the year starts at Tarleton State University, many first-time in college students comprise the newest class of students at the university. Since 2012, the university as offered a unique interactive learning experience for these new students.

This experience is Transition Week and it engages almost 1,500 students each fall semester. The students persist through a very organized schedule to learn about campus resources, the location of their classes, and they have a change to get to know their class peers before the rest of the students come back to campus (you know those - sophomores, juniors, and seniors). 

During this week, we also have a first-year convocation which simulates an actual graduation ceremony for new first-time in college students. Here's a glimpse into the ceremony.


Unfortunately, some students are not able to attend the sessions as a result of attending national guard boot camp or finishing up a college class at a local community college. The students receive transition week credit for attending the classes and they have to complete the Online Transition Week components.


So, I created an alternative way to complete the online components through Blackboard Modules. Here's the overview of the Blackboard Module course:

Enjoy the content! Please feel free to ask me questions about the Online Transition Week. 

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards

Higher Education Speaker and Researcher

My Social Media Channels!
Remember to Follow Me on Twitter! @drjtedwards
Remember to Subscribe to Me on YOUTUBE
My Research Interests: Customer Service and Social Media, Higher Education Retention, and Millennials at Work
Instagram - http://www.instagram.com/drjtedwards/
Facebook - Facebook!
If You Love Periscope as Much as I Do...Follow Me There! - http://www.periscope.com/drjtedwards/
Email Me! I am PR Friendly! - jennifertedwards@gmail.com

Monday, September 18, 2017

University Faculty - We Have an Easier Way to Take Attendance!


Virtual attendance? Sign me up! I enjoy the Student Success Collaborative system to take attendance and I wanted to encourage others to do the same! It also functions as an early alert system.

If you take attendance on another system, the data just LIVES on that system and no one can know if a student is experiencing difficulty in multiple classes. The Student Success Collaborative system is a game changer for faculty who are concerned about student success.

Here's the email that I sent to faculty:

[University] Faculty,

We are excited about the new Student Success Collaborative system at Tarleton State! Through this system, you can:

- Raise early alerts for undergraduate students in your classes without logging into the system
- Take digital attendance
- Create events for undergraduate students in your classroom and remind them of the event via email/text.
- Send proactive email messages to your undergraduate students.

After you complete this form (and watch the video), we will provide you with access to log-in to the Student Success Collaborative system. - http://tinyurl.com/SSCFacultyAccess

If you have any questions, please email jtedwards@tarleton.edu or send a message to @drjtedwards on Twitter (at anytime).

Please share this form with your colleagues.

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
Assistant Vice-President for Student Success and Multicultural Initiatives
Tarleton State University


In English

The Result
We had a great response (viewers on the YouTube video) and accesses to the EAB platform. I am totally focused on academic analytics!

Have you adopted a similar campaign? Do you have any suggestions or questions for me?

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards

My Social Media Channels!
Of Course You Follow Me on Twitter! @drjtedwards
I Am Also on Instagram! http://www.instagram.com/drjtedwards/
Have You Subscribed on YOUTUBE yet?
Become a Fan of Millennial Professor on Facebook!
If You Love Periscope as Much as I Do...Follow Me There! - http://www.periscope.com/drjtedwards/
Email Me! I am PR Friendly! - jennifertedwards@gmail.com

Monday, September 11, 2017

Higher Education Technology Campaign - How to Print Your Schedule and Email Your P


This semester, we are utilizing the Education Advisory Board's Student Success Collaborative software to communicate with students. I definitely love this software for communication campaigns! I mean, I LOVE the advising scheduling feature, but I completely admire the ability to message specific groups of students.

When I discovered that some students experienced difficulty accessing and printing their schedule, I jumped at the opportunity to incorporate the scheduling feature in the Student Success Collaborative software as a back-to-school campaign! I also made sure that the videos were captioned and in English/Spanish.

On the first day of school, I sent the following email to all FTIC students at 8:05 am:

Do you want an EASIER way to check (and print) your schedule for this semester? Log on to http://tarleton.campus.eab.com/

Watch this Video for Step-by-Step Instructions in English
How to Print Your Schedule and Email Your Professors on SSC@Tarleton State (English)
https://youtu.be/GfCAoFZMo5c

Watch this Video for Step-by-Step Instructions in Spanish
How to Print Your Schedule and Email Your Professors on SSC@Tarleton State (En Espanol)
https://youtu.be/WQtbHNkgADo

For more information, please contact Student Success and Multicultural Initiatives (968-9480) or just reply to this email.

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
Assistant VP for Student Success and Multicultural Initiatives

In English



En Espanol

The Result
We had a great response (viewers on the YouTube video) and accesses to the EAB platform. I am totally focused on academic analytics!

Have you adopted a similar campaign? Do you have any suggestions or questions for me?

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards

My Social Media Channels!
Of Course You Follow Me on Twitter! @drjtedwards
I Am Also on Instagram! http://www.instagram.com/drjtedwards/
Have You Subscribed on YOUTUBE yet?
Become a Fan of Millennial Professor on Facebook!
If You Love Periscope as Much as I Do...Follow Me There! - http://www.periscope.com/drjtedwards/
Email Me! I am PR Friendly! - jennifertedwards@gmail.com

Monday, August 31, 2015

First-Year Convocation Ceremonies for Incoming Students at Universities Across the United States


The beginning of the academic year always sparks a sense of renewal in my mind and also in the minds of many higher education faculty across the country (and beyond). I always look forward to our university's convocation ceremony, because this first-year ceremony marks the beginning of the students's academic journey at our university.

Here is this year's video focused on our first-year convocation ceremony. This video was uploaded from my Periscope video (where slightly under 70 people viewed the ceremony. Although my arm was shaky, and my mind was focused on the next steps for these students, this video captured the essence of this important moment in the lives of the almost 2,000 first-year students on campus.



While you are enjoying this video (which features some of my most favorite speakers), take a look at these first-year convocation videos as well:

Missouri State University's New Student Convocation Ceremony

Kansas State University's - New Student Convocation Ceremony

Does your college or university offer a similar experience for incoming students? The new student (or freshmen) convocation ceremony enables the students to experience a special event before they have the REAL experience in a four-year time frame. Also, please let me know if you have a video to add to the list. :)

Sincerely,

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
- Twitter/Instagram - @drjtedwards
- http://www.facebook.com/millennialprofessor/
- drjtedwards at gmail.com

Saturday, August 22, 2015

Vote for Our #SXSWEdu Session - Higher Education Hack Tech Tools for Completion - #55HigherEd


I am very excited to announce that we submitted a proposal to SXSWEdu for a third year! You can vote for our session here! and I am looking forward to (possibly) presenting at the South By Southwest Edu conference in Austin, TX! Here's are several tweets and audience member notes from last year's session:







This was an incredible experience last year and I connected with amazing people from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and also individuals from various educational organizations in Texas as beyond! I left the conference with a wealth of ideas for implementing best practices at our institution of higher education AND also neat research (and social media engagement ideas).




I am especially passionate about this year's #SXSWEdu proposal because it connects several of my professional interests in one proposal: technology, retention ideas, scalable solutions for higher education, and social media. Also, I like the continue the conversation after the conference and this year will definitely enable us to continue the conversation.


Here's our proposal video:





Here are the Learning Objectives for the session!
1 - To identify the MOST COMMON problems encountered by higher education administrators, faculty, staff, and students.
2 - To explore low-cost and higher-cost technological, programmatic, and service-based solutions for addressing the MOST common higher education problems.
3 - To connect with other participants to form two higher education learning communities: 1) teaching and learning and 2) higher education solutions.


Dr. Jennifer Edwards - Taking a selfie in the green room before the #55HigherEd Session
Description:
Higher education administrators, faculty, and staff encounter common problems that negatively impact student success at their early college high school, community college, or university. These common problems usually include: recruitment, developmental education, retention, on-time graduation rates (completion), increasing costs, changing demographics, workplace readiness (marketable skills), and budget constraints.


A picture of our name placards!
Through this session, participants will identify higher education problems, explore low-cost and higher-cost solutions, and connect with others through social media-based, higher education learning communities (on Facebook and Twitter). - 

When you have a chance, vote for our session on #SXSWEdu's panel picker. If you attended last year's conference, you know that we have a great time presenting and we LOVE engaging with our audience! :)

Thank you!

- Dr. Jennifer Edwards
@drjtedwards

Thursday, April 30, 2015

Student Success Seminars for Student Success and Retention


I am always on the lookout for new student success programs and services that would benefit universities in Texas. Each week, I receive a notification when a new program or service is featured in the press and this one really caught my eye!

The article "Student Success Seminars Aim to Motivate Students" is focused on student success seminars (not just workshops) focusing on different interventions to help students succeed in their coursework and in their life at the university. This is a neat approach focused on the "total student" both in their academic life and in their extra curricular life.

These are some of the topics featured in their series: App Academy, Chill Out, and my favorite "Finish in Four: 640 Days". This is absolutely a neat, informational approach for universities that I look forward to replicating!

Sincerely,

@drjtedwards

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Repackaging Your Web Content for Reaching Target Student Groups - 6 Steps for Effectively Packing Content You Already Have (Ruffalo Noel-Levitz)



One aspect of higher education for which I have recently developed an interest is recruitment of target student groups (and their parents) and social media/new media content marketing. 

The Ruffalo Noel-Levitz blog posted an article titled, "Content Marketing for Higher Education: Six Steps for Effectively Packaging Content You Already Have". These six steps are generally listed on the graphic listed above, but each of them make sense for the higher education environment.

The process seems rigid, but again I am not responsible for content marketing. Each step made sense and I cannot wait to modify this process for our retention model (internal content marketing) for our current students!

Enjoy! - @drjtedwards

Monday, January 19, 2015

Out-of-the-Box Ideas for Motivating College Students During Midterms and Finals


Two of my favorite times of the semester are midterms and finals. Odd, right? These are the two times students usually hear about their progress within a course (although I provide feedback more often).

To help students succeed during these key times, our area provides Midterm and Finals activities and programs for students to connect with their academic-sides! Everyone has one (or two) - perhaps a major and a minor).

While planning for the week, I have several Pinterest boards and an amazing committee. Also, we search for ideas on the web to gain insight into other university's approaches to these important time periods.

Binghamton University's Dean of Students's office connects with a wealth of offices across their campus to provide students with incentives for studying!

Here are some of their approaches:

- free group fitness classes

- therapy dogs

- chair massages

- donuts with the Dean (we have not tried this year, but sounds like a great idea)!

- one of the neatest aspects of the event is the REACH vehicle - a mobile approach to providing students with healthy tips and giveways. Here's some more information about the pink car - the mobile solution! Take a look - http://www.binghamton.edu/health/education/

- the sleep kits include sleep masks and other items you would need for a night of rest

Sincerely - @drjtedwardsTSU