Wayne County Community College
District (WCCCD)
• Early Academic Assessment
and Mid-Term Grades
Robert Berman
Professor, Department of Mathematics
Wayne State University
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
10:45 – 11:45 AM, 1:30 – 2:30 PM
1
Project Members
Many individuals are involved in the EAA program at Wayne State University.
Among them:
Robert Berman
(aa1532@wayne.edu) – Prof. of Mathematics
Kurt Kruschinska (ac5753@wayne.edu) – Associate Director Registrar’s Office
Howard Shapiro (ay1511@wayne.edu) – Associate Vice President
Naida Simon
(ab2297@wayne.edu) – ASO Provost’s Office
Cassandra Tackett (dx6182@wayne.edu) – Academic Advisor
Ann Veksler
(ac3676@wayne.edu) – Anna Veksler, Lead Sys Integrator
Laura Woodward (af5826@wayne.edu) – University Counselor
2
Early Academic Assessment
(EAA): Program Description
• Academic progress for students enrolled in
Courses Numbered < 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
3
Introduction
• Goals
• Discuss the mechanics of the
implementation of the Wayne State Early
Academic Assessment as Mid-term grades
in Banner’s 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
5
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 Faculty
Which Faculty and Students?
• Faculty and Courses?
• Course Numbers < 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 Faculty
What can be Achieved?
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•
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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
instructor’s job, so it is to track student performance.
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Listserv E-mail Contact Faculty
How & 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 Faculty
More 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/EAAProgram.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 Faculty
Ease 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 GTA’s 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 Faculty
Coordinators (EAA/Grading)
•
•
•
Howard Shapiro
Associate Vice President for Undergraduate Programs and General Education
College and School Coordinators
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•
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College
BA
ED
ED-KHS
ENG
FCPA
CLAS
NUR
PA
PA-CLS
SW
Name
Linda Zaddach
Janice Green
Carol Horn
Michele Grimm
Steve Peters
LaSondra Dawn
Felicia Grace
Richard Slaughter
Jean Garza
Janet Joiner
E-mail
ad3345@wayne.edu
ab9310@wayne.edu
ab4830@wayne.edu
ab2609@wayne.edu
eb6490@wayne.edu
ag1648@wayne.edu
fgrace@wayne.edu
aa4043@wayne.edu
ac8342@wayne.edu
ac2027@wayne.edu
Phone
7-4510
7-1605
7-4265
7-8395
7-5747
7-2516
7-7995
7-8502
7-5898
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 Website
EAA, 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
• C&IT 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,
C&IT 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
• FAQ’s Website
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Follow-up and Analysis
• Reports
• Cohorts
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Follow-up and Analysis:
Stars EAA Report
• Shows Classes and Students with Course
Numbers < 3000 having EAA/Midterm grades
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Follow-up and Analysis:
The Stars EAA Report
• Primary tool for obtaining needed data is this
report. Select
• Term (200709, 200801, 200809, …)
• College (ED, LS, FA, PA, …)
• Course Numbers ( < 3000, < 2000, < 1000)
• Grade Filter (All, No Grades, No EAA
Grades, Graded, EAA Graded)
• Output Type: Classes, Students
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Follow-up and Analysis:
Academic Affairs ↔ Colleges
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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
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Class
CRN
Instructor
Class Description
Home (Cross-Listing)
Enrollment
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•
Graded (any)
# Grades
% Graded
EAA Graded
# EAA Grades
% EAA Grades
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Follow-up and Analysis:
Academic 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 Analysis:
Stars 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@wayne.edu) – Professor, Dept. of Math.
Kurt Kruschinska (ac5753@wayne.edu) – Associate Director Registrar’s Office
Howard Shapiro (ay1511@wayne.edu) – Associate Vice President
Naida Simon
(ab2297@wayne.edu) – ASO Provost’s Office
Cassandra Tackett (dx6182@wayne.edu) – Academic Advisor
Ann Veksler
(ac3676@wayne.edu) – Anna Veksler, Lead Sys Integrator
Laura Woodward (af5826@wayne.edu) – University Counselor
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