February 11, 2020  |  News & Events, Timely Announcements

NOTE: This message was sent on Friday, February 7, 2020, to all instructors teaching undergraduate courses for the Spring 2020 term.

Colleagues,

First, I’d like to thank you for last semester’s excellent participation in Progress Reports; we had 47,000 total reports submitted by 850 instructors, an increase of 17% in total reports. This semester, we’re introducing two key changes that we hope will make the campaign even more effective:

  • Narrowing the campaign window to three weeks (February 10 – February 29) to ensure students receive critical feedback in a timely fashion. [NOTE: the campaign was extended to March 14]
  • Implementing text messaging, so that advisors have more options for following up with students.

Your feedback and outreach are critical to the success of our students. I truly appreciate the effort all UWM faculty and staff make to enhance the success and retention of our students.

Take care,
Johannes

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SPRING 2020 CAMPAIGN
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); the purpose of the campaign is to coordinate our efforts, allowing advisors and other support staff to identify patterns.

The Spring 2020 Progress Report campaign will run from February 10 until midnight on February 29 [NOTE: the campaign was extended to March 14]. Please submit your Progress Reports at a time that makes the most sense for your course.

Process

  1. Please discuss with your students what “at-risk” means in your course. As the automated message students receive is merely an alert, additional information you provide should help to prompt action by the student.
  2. Follow the link in the invitation email. When writing the reports, please provide a level of detail that will be helpful to students, advisors, and success coaches. A video tutorial can be found here.
  3. Please submit reports for all students, particularly those at-risk of withdrawing from the class or receiving a low grade. Signs of risk:
    • limited or no use of courseware used by the class (D2L or Canvas)
    • multiple missing assignments
    • an overall grade of C- or lower
    • more than 2 unexplained absences
    • other concerns 

All reports will be directed to professional staff dedicated to student success including advisors, success coaches, and coordinators, who will respond on a case-by-case basis. Your students will have received messaging about the campaign and the need to log in to Navigate to check their reports. See below for instructions you can post to remind them how to see their reports. 

TROUBLESHOOTING

If you run into difficulties with the process, please contact navigate-support@uwm.edu. Here are responses to some common issues and questions:

  • All instructors assigned to a course in PAWS receive a unique link to submit Progress Reports. Instructors should communicate with each other to determine who will be submitting reports.
  • Lectures and discussions/labs may receive a separate Progress Report request. You are encouraged to submit reports for whichever section makes the most sense for your course.
  • If you don’t see a student on your course roster in the link provided in the auto-generated email, log in to the Navigate platform and complete Progress Reports there.
  • Comments that you include in Progress Reports will not go out over email to students, but will be visible when they log in to Navigate. The more information you are able to provide, the better it is for the student, and the advisor, coach, or support staff who may be following up.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR STUDENTS

To view the progress reports submitted by your instructors,

  1. Log in to Navigate using the Current Students drop down from the UWM homepage.
  2. Select “Reports” under Student Home.
  3. Select “View Report” under the Details column of the Progress Reports area.

Johannes Britz
Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs