RETENTION! RETENTION! RETENTION!

We’re setting some ambitious goals to increase student success and retention in HASSE [a 2% overall increase]! It’s not the first time these types of goals have been set, but I feel pretty confident that, compared to previous efforts, we now have a new array of resources that can help us pin-point areas of potential improvement. As I’ve previously reported, there’s often not a lot individual Unit Coordinators can do to boost course applications, but there are some careful steps we can take to improve retention within our units. Most notably, UNE’s Assessment Policy recommends: ‘providing students with feedback on one or more assessment tasks before the census date to allow consideration of progress’. It’s recommended that an early formative task be set in week 2 or 3, so that students can get a sense of their competencies before census date. In large units, it may not be feasible to turnaround marking and written feedback in that time [ie. prior to census], so something like an automatically-assessed multiple choice quiz may be the most practical solution.  

A lot of work has also been done to streamline course progression, and I’ve been working with UNE’s Growth Team to explore our Business Intelligence Retention Dashboard to ascertain where the ‘pain points’ are in our Attrition. To give an example of this, a cohort of students from a course may complete a particular unit from their course with a 100% success rate; yet another cohort of students from a different course may only complete that same unit with a 50% success rate. We’re working to understand more about why this is the case, and see what we can do to address it.

Business Intelligence Services

At one of our recent STRIVE [Strategic Topics in Research Initiatives, Visibility, and Excellence] sessions we briefly worked through the remarkable resources that are available to staff via ‘Business Intelligence Services’. As hinted at with the retention example above, there is a wealth of information available via the various Dashboards on Power BI, ranging from student load, grade distributions, course success rates, comparisons between units/courses, and much more! Utilising this information effectively can help us understand more about student patterns of study. The Dashboards are built, and work, in many different ways, and I’d recommend taking some time just to explore the information on offer. For example, you may like to track historical load for your units, or historical grade trends, or [not wanting to start a fight] compare HASSE’s amazing student evaluations compared to that of…ahem…some other Faculties…   😃

HASSE Communities of Practice

The first meetings of our four HASSE Communities of Practice will be taking place over the next two weeks. If you missed my email of 13 August, to summarise:

We’re creating several new ‘Communities of Practice’ to help facilitate discussions, and I’d like to invite you all to join. The groups include:

• Artificial Intelligence and Technology
• Pedagogical Development and Innovation
• Student Engagement and Retention
• Assessment and Evaluation

The idea is that anyone interested can attend a meeting of these groups to share ideas and learn from each other [you’re more than welcome to join multiple groups if you’d like]. What this leads to is entirely up to the members of the group: it can be as easy as participating in the discussions and learning about new teaching ideas or assessment structures, or it may culminate in inspiration for publications, teaching citations, or grants.

If any of these groups look interesting to you, please send me an email [ adtlhasse@une.edu.au ] and I’ll include you on the invite list for our meetings.

Early Entry Project

I’ve previously reported on the improvements we’ll soon see from UNE’s Early Entry Project [see ADTL Digest from may 2024]. The project team are now at a communications stage, and have begun reaching out to key stakeholders across the University. If you’re invited, I encourage you to attend to learn more, or feel free to reach out to me directly and I can advise.

Curriculum developments

Finally, here is a summary of some key course developments underway in the Faculty:

• New units in HSC University Pathways.
  • Change to be made ASAP.
  • Unsure of EFTSL growth
  • Growth Team Involvement
• Ongoing work on Master of Strategic Leadership and Emergency Management
  • Aiming to open T2, 2025
  • Calculated 8-12 EFTSL
  • Growth Team Involvement
• New Graduate Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages about to go through governance
  • Aiming to open T3, 2025
  • Calculated 2-3 EFTSL
  • Growth Team Involvement
• Ongoing work on Graduate Certificate in Applied Artificial Intelligence [inter-Faculty initiative led by Growth Team]
  • Aiming to open T3 2025
  • Unsure of EFTSL growth
  • Growth Team Involvement
• Ongoing work Bachelor of Politics, Philosophy, Economics and Law
  • Aiming to open T1, 2026
  • Unsure of EFTSL growth
  • Waiting on Growth Team Report/Financials
• Postgraduate offerings for CRIM now that the units are double-coded [no new units, simply placing those double-coded units in new structures]
  • Various start dates
  • Unsure of EFTSL growth
  • No Growth Team Involvement due to ease of double-coding.
• Early stages of work on our Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Living
  • T1, 2026
  • Unsure of EFTSL growth
  • No Growth Team Involvement yet
• Ongoing work on Master of International Relations
  • T1, 2026
  • Estimated 5 EFTSL – not calculated yet.
  • Growth Team Involvement