Feedback from and to students about their progress in a unit, including their understanding of what is expected of them as a student, and what they can expect from their teacher(s), is one of the most important and powerful tools in enabling students to succeed in achieving learning outcomes. Collecting information about how and if students are engaging in a unit early on, is one way of obtaining such feedback for both ourselves as teachers, but also for the institution.
To support processes to determine whether students are actively engaged in a unit that they are enrolled in, as approved by Academic Senate, Unit Coordinators have a responsibility to ensure that their unit has
at least two meaningful methods of evaluating engagement built into the first 4 weeks of a unit
A record of results of these engagement activities should be kept for audit and review purposes.
Your Associate Dean Learning and Teaching will inform you about how to report student engagement data.
There are some ideas below that may help you to design meaningful engagement activities.
In the first few weeks of study in your unit, there are likely to be multiple activities that students engage in which will assist in setting them up to succeed by the end of the semester. Consider what these are, and make a list of the 4 or 5 that you consider to most critical to their ability to succeed. You may find looking at the ideas in the tabs below helps you to identify some of these.
Once you have a list of 4 or 5 activities that are crucial for most students in order for them to succeed, find two that focus on different aspects of the unit, for example, one that is focussed on the administrative aspects of your unit (contact details, assignment due dates etc), and one that is focussed on the Content of your unit (information and ideas that will support their attainment of the ILOs).
Activities that could be used to evaluate engagement might include:
Feedback on progress
A way of collecting information about how well students have developed key understandings or skills required to successfully learn and achieve the unit’s ILOs in the first three weeks of your unit. Check to see whether students have the prerequisite knowledge or skills needed to succeed in your unit. This information can be useful feedback for you as a teacher, but also for the student so they can make an informed decision about their likely chance of success, and whether or not they should continue in the unit.
Other ways of using the requirement to ‘engage’ to also give you/the students an indication of their progress in the unit.
Collection: automatic or manual
Transfer to Grades: automatic or manual
Awareness of enrolment
A simple indication from a student that they know they are enrolled in a unit, and that they will attempt to complete it. You would only use one of these at a maximum, as they are the least meaningful in terms of indicating potential future success.
Engagement with key information needed for success
An opportunity to direct students to key information from your unit’s Essential Information/Unit Outline that will aid their successful engagement with and completion of your unit. Using more than one of these types of activities is not advised.
If the evaluation of student engagement in your unit is to be meaningful, then is is important that the two identified activities are not simply hoop-jumping exercises for students, but are, in fact, meaningful for their learning and experience and understanding of the requirements of your unit specifically.
It is recommended that you discuss with Unit Coordinators of other units that students in your unit typically study during the same semester, the activities they have identified as being used to evaluate engagement for their unit(s). Engagement in these activities will be more meaningful to students if they are doing different activities in different units.
Unit Coordinators are also responsible for informing students that there will be processes for evaluating their engagement. It is recommended that this is done both in the Unit Outline document and in the Essential Information module* in your unit’s MyLO site, and with a follow-up reminder email sent to students who have not yet completed both activities.
*Other titles for an Essentials module in your unit might include Unit Information, Introduction, etc
Suggested text for a Content file in your Essentials* module might be:
MyLO
Online Study Mode (referred to as Off Campus in eStudent)
As a student, you are expected to participate actively and positively in the teaching/learning environment, which in this unit means here in MyLO. During the first four weeks of this semester, you participation in this environment will be monitored, and two activities in particular will be used to evaluate your engagement in this unit.
It is important that you complete both of these activities, because if you do not demonstrate evidence of having engaged actively with this unit by completing them by Week 4 of semester, your enrolment may be cancelled or you may be withdrawn from the unit.
The two activities that will be used to evaluate your engagement in this unit are:
[Activity name and Quicklink to instructions or activity itself]
[Activity name and Quicklink to instructions or activity itself]
On Campus Study Mode
As a student, you are expected to participate actively and positively in the teaching/learning environment, which includes both the on campus environment and the online environment here in MyLO. During the first four weeks of this semester, your participation in these environments will be monitored, and two activities in particular will be used to evaluate your engagement in this unit.
It is important that you complete both of these activities, because if you do not demonstrate evidence of having engaged actively with this unit by completing them by Week 4 of semester, your enrolment may be cancelled or you may be withdrawn from the unit.
The two activities that will be used to evaluate your engagement in this unit are:
[Activity name and Quicklink to instructions or activity itself]
[Activity name and Quicklink to instructions or activity itself]
Unit Outline
In this unit, your active engagement will be monitored in the following way:
[Activity name and Quicklink to instructions or activity itself]
[Activity name and Quicklink to instructions or activity itself]
If you do not demonstrate evidence of having engaged actively with this unit by completing these two activities by Week 4 of semester, your enrolment may be cancelled or you may be withdrawn from the unit.
The current Unit Outline Proforma, found in the Communication section of this website, contains this suggested text.
During the first four weeks of semester, you will need to have a plan for the collection of information about whether or not students have completed the identified engagement activities.
If the activities occur on campus, for example, through attendance/participation in a class, the easiest to record this is directly into a MyLO Grade Item either as you (or your tutors) note attendance during class, or after class if you prefer to use paper and a pen in class.
If the activities relate to student tasks within your unit's MyLO site, you will need to know where to find data about who has or has not completed those tasks. To find this information, use the links in the Reports section of your MyLO site's homepage, or from the tool the student activity should occur in.
