Last spring, the College of Engineering听and听Applied Science partnered with the Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) team, part of听the听Office of听Information听Technology (OIT), to identify first-听and second-year engineering students at risk of not passing individual courses.
The goal of this collaboration, which was spearheaded by Ken Anderson, Mary Steiner and Megan Harris from the College of Engineering听and Susan Ulrich from the CRM team, was to proactively reach out to students who may be struggling to ensure they鈥檙e aware of the support resources readily available to them, thereby boosting student retention and success.
Instructors for approximately 90 courses were asked to provide feedback on student performance in their classes. The courses spanned several schools and colleges and were drawn from disciplines that included applied math, chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, computer science, economics, music, physics and sociology.
Roughly half of those instructors completed the assessment by submitting performance data via an online submission form created by the CRM team. The form allowed instructors to indicate students with excessive absences, identify students at risk of poor performance (such as those with low exam scores) and provide additional comments on why they think a student may be struggling in their course. This information was integrated into听, an online platform used by advisors and other student success staff across campus, so they could see the data and proactively reach out to students who might be struggling.
Once identified, 1,153 undergraduate students from across the campus received an email mid-semester identifying the course(s) where they were at risk of not passing. They were provided with information on support resources such as tutoring, workshops, resource centers, professor office hours and more.
The results of this process were encouraging. Seventy-four percent of the students who received the at-risk email opened it. At the end of the semester, 43 percent of those students who received the mid-semester email received a C- or higher, and 24 percent chose to withdraw from a course to help improve their performance on other classes.
抖阴旅行射 Boulder听Vice Provost and Associate Vice Chancellor for Undergraduate Education Mary Kraus lauded the collaboration that produced these significant results.
鈥淲e know that our students take courses听from multiple colleges,听and听when colleges and schools collaborate on student success initiatives, it helps to provide a consistent student and faculty experience,鈥澨齭aid Kraus.听
With the success of this pilot, there are plans to expand the initiative more broadly this fall by also partnering with the College of Arts听and听Sciences and the Program听in听Environmental Design. With these new partners, instructors in more than 200 classes across campus will be asked to provide early alert information on their students.
鈥淲e听hope to develop a single coordinated mechanism for soliciting midterm feedback from faculty听who are currently asked to provide feedback in a variety of ways for various student populations,鈥� said Kraus. 鈥淢y抖阴旅行射Hub听could become that mechanism, and we encourage additional faculty to participate this fall so that we can further integrate faculty feedback and advisor outreach in support of students.鈥�
