Colleagues,
This semester’s Progress Report campaign will run from February 17- March 19. Some quick notes:
- As soon as possible: If you have actionable information about a student now, please submit it now; the sooner the better.
- More student-centered language: At long last we can get rid of the “at risk” language. Details below.
- Explain the purpose: We still need to do more to help students understand the purpose of Progress Reports. Please post the below language in your Canvas site and/or share via email.
Instructors will be receiving an email soon with their course specific link. Thank you for your help with this important initiative.
Take care,
Johannes
Suitable for Posting on Canvas
UWM uses Navigate, a powerful tool dedicated to student success. There are numerous benefits to you as a student to engage with the platform and mobile application, including learning about academic resources, setting up study groups in your courses, making appointments with your academic advisor, getting reminders on important dates, and much more.
In addition, Navigate allows instructors to send Progress Reports to students throughout the term, allowing for updates on your academic progress in a course in addition to your grade. Certain reports may encourage academic advisors or other support staff to provide outreach to you as well. You can log into the platform here: https://uwmilwaukee.campus.eab.com/ or by finding the Navigate link under the Current Students tab on the UWM home page. More information on how you can use Navigate and the app, including tutorials, can be found on UWM’s Navigate website.
Instructions for Students
To view the progress reports submitted by your instructors,
- Log in to Navigate using the Current Students drop down from the UWM homepage.
- Select “Reports” under Student Home.
- Select “View Report” under the Details column of the Progress Reports area.
New and Improved Progress Report Language
We have edited the Progress Report emails based on feedback from instructors and students, and in doing so we have streamlined and improved communication. This allows for a more compassionate message to be received by students while also including the course, instructor, alert reason, grades, absences detail (if identified by instructor), and date and time of the submission. This email will no longer appear like it is coming from an instructor, but rather a Student Success Center email address.
Old email to student
SUBJECT: You were evaluated as at risk.
EMAIL HEADER: You have been marked at risk.
TEXT: You have received this email because of a professor evaluation in one of the classes you are enrolled in this term.
New email to student
SUBJECT: Your professor shared feedback on a course.
EMAIL HEADER: Your instructor is concerned about your progress, and we want to help you succeed!
TEXT: You have received this email because a professor evaluating one of the classes you are enrolled in this term indicated that you could benefit from additional support. It’s common that students experience issues inside and outside of class that affect their ability to be successful. Read on to learn more about resources available to you!
How Progress Reports Work
Explaining. Please post the above message to Canvas and also talk to your students about what Progress Reports are and what they do. Let them know when they might expect them from you, and how they can access and read them. (Instructions for students are included above.)
Submitting. Instructors can submit a progress report or alert for a student at any time by selecting Navigate on the Faculty/Staff tab of the UWM homepage (a tutorial is available here). To participate in the campaign, please follow the link in the invitation email you received. When writing the reports, please provide a level of detail that will be helpful to students, advisors, success coaches, and the Student Success Center.
Routing. When someone submits a progress report on a student that is struggling academically, that student and their advisor both receive a notification from Navigate. When logged in to Navigate, the student and the advisor will both see the “Reason” you selected (e.g., “Missing Work”) and any explanation you provided. In addition, if you chose to refer the student to a resource, that office will reach out to the student. This chart shows how Progress Reports are routed:
Instructors and others may also submit an “Alert,” which leads the assigned office to create a case and reach out to the student:
Reaching Out. The advisors in your school or college will be contacting many of the students who receive Progress Reports that suggest they may be in danger of poor academic performance; how that is defined may vary by school or college.
Reaching out to students can be a significant challenge. Advisors will often try to call students, only to find they don’t answer and/or don’t have voicemail turned on. Or they will email and get no response. As of this past year, they can also employ text messaging. Many will make multiple attempts to reach students, but they won’t always be successful. This is why the Student Success Center will now work on building other avenues to reaching out (e.g., resident advisors and peer mentors).
But it’s also critical that instructors continue, when possible, to reach out to students as well. Progress reports are just one additional tool to aid student success and prompt conversations with students, and when they work they can work very well. But the course instructors are still the most critical partner in helping students succeed.
Johannes Britz
Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs