Wayne County Community College District (WCCCD)

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Wayne County Community College District (WCCCD)

• Early Academic Assessment and Mid-Term Grades

Robert BermanProfessor, Department of
Mathematics Wayne State University Tuesday,
October 28, 2008 1045 1145 AM, 130 230 PM
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Project Members

• Many individuals are involved in the EAA program
  at Wayne State University. Among them
• Robert Berman (aa1532_at_wayne.edu) Prof. of
  Mathematics
• Kurt Kruschinska (ac5753_at_wayne.edu) Associate
  Director Registrars Office
• Howard Shapiro (ay1511_at_wayne.edu) Associate
  Vice President
• Naida Simon (ab2297_at_wayne.edu) ASO
  Provosts Office
• Cassandra Tackett (dx6182_at_wayne.edu) Academic
  Advisor
• Ann Veksler (ac3676_at_wayne.edu) Anna
  Veksler, Lead Sys Integrator
• Laura Woodward (af5826_at_wayne.edu)
  University Counselor

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Early Academic Assessment (EAA) Program
Description

• Academic progress for students enrolled in
  Courses Numbered lt 3000 is assessed by faculty at
  the end of third week of classes.
• If a student's performance is assessed below the
  C level, the student receives an alert
  notification referring him/her to appropriate
  campus resources

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Introduction

• Goals
• Discuss the mechanics of the implementation of
  the Wayne State Early Academic Assessment as
  Mid-term grades in Banners Faculty Self-Service
  module
• Show how Students, Faculty, and Administrators
  are involved in various feedback loops

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Features

• Early identification of under performing students
• Efficient communication to those students by
  means of web and e-mail
• directing affected students to appropriate
  support services
• Immediate monitoring of faculty compliance
• Availability of reports so the program can be
  assessed and improved

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Initial Communications

• E-mail
• To EAA coordinators
• Associate VP of Academic Affairs to Faculty
• Reminders to Deans and Chairs

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Listserv E-mail Contact Faculty by Assoc VP of
Academic Affairs

• The Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs
  sends out an e-mail early in the semester
  detailing
• Program Rationale
• Specific Faculty Responsibilities

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Listserv E-mail Contact Faculty Statement of
Purpose

• Dear Faculty,
• Enhance Learning and Success of Students by
  identifying potential problems and encouraging
  those students to seek help early
• As teachers, we have a common goal of enhancing
  the learning and success of our students. When
  students show signs of academic difficulty, we
  know that early intervention can often result in
  improvements in performance. For several years,
  Wayne State University has had an Early Academic
  Assessment (EAA) program in place to identify
  potential problems as early as possible and to
  encourage students to get necessary assistance
  right away.

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Listserv E-mail Contact FacultyWhich Faculty and
Students?

• Faculty and Courses?
• Course Numbers lt 3000
• Faculty teaching courses numbered below 3000 play
  a crucial role in this process by
• Which Students?
• Coursework equivalent to below C
• submitting EAA grades through WSU Pipeline
  beginning in the third week of class for students
  who are identified as having difficulty with
  their coursework (equivalent to below "C" work).

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Listserv E-mail Contact FacultyWhat can be
Achieved?

• Identify specific student problem areas early
• Convey the message that we care about success
• Provide timely and useful support referring
  students to
• Instructor
• Advisor
• Academic Success Center
• Counseling and Psychological services
• Through this intervention we are able to
• identify specific student problem areas early,
• convey the message that we care about our
  students' academic and personal success, and
• provide timely, useful support by referring the
  identified students to their instructor, their
  advisor, the Comerica Academic Success Center,
  and/or Counseling and Psychological Services.

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Listserv E-mail Contact Faculty Call for
Participation

• Tracking student performance is as much a part of
  the job of teaching as assigning a grade at the
  end of the semester
• This semester we ask that all faculty teaching
  courses numbered below 3000 make a concerted
  effort to participate in the EAA process by
  creating opportunities as early as possible in
  the semester to provide feedback to students
  through the EAA process. Just as assigning a
  grade is part of the instructors job, so it is
  to track student performance.

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Listserv E-mail Contact FacultyHow When to
submit EAA Grades

• Through Pipeline (WSU web portal)
• EAA grading pages are available to faculty for
  grade entry through WSU pipeline
  http//pipeline.wayne.edu/ as of
• Weeks 3, 4, 5, 6
• Monday, September 15, 2008 and ending on Monday,
  October 13, 2008. Every semester the EAA grading
  period is from week three though week six.

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Listserv E-mail Contact FacultyMore Details
Program Web Page

• EAA grades should be submitted in all courses
  numbered below 3000 for students whose work you
  deem to be equivalent to below a "C". Detailed
  information (including procedures, details of the
  grading system, mock-ups of faculty and student
  web-pages, and technical support information) is
  available online by clicking the Online EAA
  Program link http//faculty.wayne.edu/EAA/EAAProgr
  am.htm.

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Listserv E-mail Contact Faculty Deferrals
Waivers Coordinators

• Under some circumstances, Early Academic
  Assessment may be deferred to the end of the
  sixth week or may be waived. The deadline for
  submission of deferred assessments is Monday,
  October 13, 2008. Approval for deferral or waiver
  must be requested by contacting the EAA
  Coordinator of the College/School in which the
  course is taught. Please refer to the list of
  college and school coordinators at the end of
  this message.

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Listserv E-mail To Faculty Quick Student Feedback

• Your students will receive feedback as soon as
  you can get your EAA grades in the system, so you
  don't have to wait until October 13 to submit EAA
  grades. For new students, receiving this feedback
  as soon as possible may be a critical step in
  enhancing their likelihood for success at Wayne
  State.

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Listserv E-mail To FacultyEase of Submission
Proxy Graders

• This is NOT a time-consuming process, since it
  needs to be completed for only those students
  with some type of course performance deficiency.
  For faculty teaching large classes who have
  graduate teaching assistants (GTA), you may want
  to allow your GTAs to give EAA grades. You
  should contact your grading coordinator to obtain
  this permission.
• Your active participation is essential to our
  efforts to improve student learning, and I very
  much appreciate your support of this program.

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Listserv E-mail To FacultyCoordinators
(EAA/Grading)

• Howard Shapiro
• Associate Vice President for Undergraduate
  Programs and General Education
• College and School Coordinators
• College Name E-mail Phone
• BA Linda Zaddach ad3345_at_wayne.edu 7-4510
• ED Janice Green ab9310_at_wayne.edu 7-1605
• ED-KHS Carol Horn ab4830_at_wayne.edu 7-4265
• ENG Michele Grimm ab2609_at_wayne.edu 7-8395
• FCPA Steve Peters eb6490_at_wayne.edu 7-5747
• CLAS LaSondra Dawn ag1648_at_wayne.edu 7-2516
• NUR Felicia Grace fgrace_at_wayne.edu 7-7995
• PA Richard Slaughter aa4043_at_wayne.edu 7-8502
• PA-CLS Jean Garza ac8342_at_wayne.edu 7-5898
• SW Janet Joiner ac2027_at_wayne.edu 7-4409

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More Information About Program

• The next set of slides have some more information
  about
• Coordinators
• The EAA Grading System
• Grade Entry
• Proxy Graders

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Coordinators WebsiteEAA, Grading, Scheduling,
Advisor

• Faculty and Staff also can find contact
  information for their EAA coordinators from the
  coordinators website.

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EAA Grading

• Grading System
• Define a relatively simple system of grade
  symbols
• Enable the identification of one or more specific
  areas of concern
• Using single grade
• Distinct from standard grades (A, B, C, )

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EAA Grading System
Grade Area of Deficiency
-H Homework
-E Exams/Quizzes
-L Labwork
-P Performance/Presentation/Project/Participation
-T Attendance
-HE Homework, Exams/Quizzes
-HL Homework, Labwork
? ?
-PT Performance/Presentation/Project/Participation, Attendance
--- More than two areas
There are 16 symbols, 5 representing individual
areas, 10 for pairs of areas, and 1 for three or
more. (More details on the web
http//faculty.wayne.edu/EAA/EAAGradeSymbols.htm).

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Grade Entry

• Use Banner Faculty Self-Service Module
• Midterm Grades
• EAA grades cannot be rolled to academic history
• To make available on the web use
• Web Indicator
• Grading Rules

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Proxy Graders

• Input of Grades
• Faculty sometimes wish to designate others
  including administrative staff and graduate
  assistants to input grades
• Designated graders are set up in the Banner forms
  SIAINST and SIAASGN as proxy graders

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Student Notification

• CIT has table in which advisors are listed by
  school and college. Every term, at the prompting
  of the Advising center, the accuracy of the table
  is verified and corrections made if necessary

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Student Notification

• Starting from the third week of Fall and Winter
  terms, CIT runs the program (AppWorx module)
  that prepares data for Mail Merge letter template
  fields, such as student name, Id, e-mail
  address, course name, description from mid-term
  grade (deficient area), advisor name, e-mail,
  phone number.
• Save this data to an Excel file, and e-mail this
  file to a designated person in the Advising
  Center. (This part will be automated soon.)
• The designated person in the Advising Center
  merges this file with letter template, and sends
  e-mails to students.
• The mailings are repeated four times, at the end
  of the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th weeks of the term.

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Support

• Support can be obtained from
• University Advising Office
• Computer Center Help Desk for LDAP issues
• Coordinators website
• FAQs Website

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Follow-up and Analysis

• Reports
• Cohorts

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Follow-up and AnalysisStars EAA Report

• Shows Classes and Students with Course Numbers lt
  3000 having EAA/Midterm grades

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Follow-up and AnalysisThe Stars EAA Report

• Primary tool for obtaining needed data is this
  report. Select
• Term (200709, 200801, 200809, )
• College (ED, LS, FA, PA, )
• Course Numbers ( lt 3000, lt 2000, lt 1000)
• Grade Filter (All, No Grades, No EAA Grades,
  Graded, EAA Graded)
• Output Type Classes, Students

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Follow-up and AnalysisAcademic Affairs ?
Colleges

• The colleges are sent the Chart above with total
  Number of EAA Classes
• The STARS EAA Report is used to fill in the first
  column
• At the end of the process the other columns are
  filled in and No Deficient Grades is based on
  e-mails received from the faculty).
• The college coordinator fills in the numbers and
  a final report is compiled.

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Stars EAA Report Output Academic Affairs,
Colleges

• Class
• CRN
• Instructor
• Class Description
• Home (Cross-Listing)
• Enrollment

• Graded (any)
• Grades
• Graded
• EAA Graded
• EAA Grades
• EAA Grades

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Follow-up and AnalysisAcademic Success Center
(ASC)

• The director of the ASC uses the Stars EAA report
  to pulls the names of any student who received an
  EAA grade. They are enrolled in a free, online
  study skills course.

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Follow-up and AnalysisStars Cohort Tracking
Tool (CTT)

• Can report Early Assessment grade data by Cohort
  instead of class

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Follow-up and Analysis Stars Cohort Tracking
Tool (CTT)

• Can produce retention and graduation data for
  cohorts of students who received deficient Early
  Assessment grades

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Stars Cohort Tracking (CTT) Cohorts with EAA
Grades - Retention

• For a range of terms, displays initial cohort
  count, count re-enrolled, degrees prior to end
  term, etc.

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Summary

• Early intervention with students having problems
  in their classes has the potential to
  significantly bolster student retention and
  success, particularly at large urban universities
  like WSU
• Faculty Self-Service Midterm grades can be
  adapted to an Early Academic Assessment system
  that facilitates referral of students to
  available campus resources
• Supplementary Reports and communication tools are
  able to facilitate support, follow-up, and data
  analysis.

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Questions and Answers

• Questions?
• Feel free to contact me (Robert Berman) or any
  one of the project members after the conference

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Thank You!

• Robert Berman (aa1532_at_wayne.edu) Professor,
  Dept. of Math.

Kurt Kruschinska (ac5753_at_wayne.edu) Associate
Director Registrars Office Howard Shapiro
(ay1511_at_wayne.edu) Associate Vice
President Naida Simon
(ab2297_at_wayne.edu) ASO Provosts
Office Cassandra Tackett (dx6182_at_wayne.edu)
Academic Advisor Ann Veksler
(ac3676_at_wayne.edu) Anna Veksler, Lead Sys
Integrator Laura Woodward (af5826_at_wayne.edu)
University Counselor