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RECAST | Winter 2020 | Week 5 | Resources & Reminders

by · February 5, 2020

Dear Colleagues:

Despite some cold and bluster, little signs of spring are bravely pushing forth! Please take a few moments to read all of these reminders. And feel free to check in with us if you have any questions or comments.

Week Five Check-ins:  Checking in with your students at the midpoint of your program can provide valuable feedback to you and help students develop metacognitive skills. The McGraw Center at Princeton University offers a variety of questions that provide a useful launching point for writing a mid-quarter student survey. The Berkeley Center for Teaching & Learning also provides a few sample surveys as examples.  If an online survey is more your beat, the Student Assessment of their Learning Gains Survey provides a customizable online instrument designed to gather learning-focused student feedback.  Techniques such as Minute Papers, The Muddiest Point, or Chain Notes are less formal mechanisms for gathering feedback on student learning.  The best resources for examples of classroom evaluation techniques is the comprehensive text ‘Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers’ by Angelo and Cross. Copies are available for lending from the Learning and Teaching Commons lending library. (Reminder from Learning and Teaching Commons)

Phones and Voicemail: A number of us do not often use our office phones, which is understandable given that we each carry one around all the time. However, a number of faculty have no voice message set up at all. Some faculty and staff have a message simply directing callers to use email instead. Can we use voice messaging to invite students in? Please, if you do not use your office phone, can you take the step to leave a friendly voice message directing people how to reach you?

Human Subjects Review: We have severely limited capacity to review HSR proposals. As students develop research projects, please advise them about the Human Subjects Review Process. You may want to re-familiarize yourself with the criteria by which projects might require an actual review. Please note that the vast majority of our students’ projects are not a systematic investigation, leading to generalizable knowledge, which will reveal private identifiable information about human subjects. Thus, they would not require a full review protocol. We invite you, as faculty advisors, to monitor this process. You may want your students to fill out the application as an educational exercise, but please be advised that due to staffing limitations, we are not able to review such applications. It is up to faculty supervisors to help discern which applications warrant submission for full review to the team. Contact Karen Gaul to consult.  

Awarding Incompletes. It has come to our attention that Evergreen’s current policy for offering incompletes for up to four quarters puts us in tension with federal policies and processes for returning financial aid funds. As we look to make recommendations for changing our current policy and processes, we ask that you consider only providing students, to whom you know you will be awarding some type of credit, with a thirty-day extension. This would not only remove any conflict with meeting federal policies and processes, but also will not drag student incompletes out.  Particularly important is whether the student earns some type of credit. If you will be awarding no credit, this credit must be posted by the college’s evaluation due date, which is within two weeks of the end of the term. We will be in touch with you in the weeks ahead about recommendations for shift these practices and policy. For now, please consider no more than 30 days for incompletes, and please document the credits that have been earned in the online record system at the end of the program. (Please speak to Karen Gaul or Amy Betz about this if you have questions).

Timely enrollment communication. Communicating with Registration about student attendance in the first ten days of the quarter is critically important. You can do this in three ways:

  1. Submit your enrollment report by the end of week 1 (if not sooner).
  2. Email Registration and Records by the end of week 2.
  3. Submit a care report .

The unintended consequences: Often we may hope that giving a student extra time to show up to class may be a supportive gesture. Unfortunately, this is not the case.   If a student is not coming to class, and Registration does not hear about it until much later (or possibly not until the next quarter of a multi-quarter program), all sorts of unintended consequences may occur including:

  • Students who receive financial aid may have to pay back large amounts of grants and loan- leaving them in financial jeopardy.
  • Students who live in housing may face eviction if not enrolled in a program or courses.
  • Students on-campus jobs could be in jeopardy.
  • Student veterans may be at risk of losing their benefits.

Early communication about lack of attendance allows offices like Veterans, TRiO and Academic and Career Advising to do an early reach out before the above scenarios are at risk of happening.

(submitted by Lori Klatt, Registration; Randy Kelley, Veteran’s Services; Colby Morelli, Financial Aid; and Emily Pieper, TRIO; Karen Gaul, Academic Dean).

UPCOMING EVENTS AND DEADLINES

Evening and Weekend Studies Liberal Arts Forum: This annual event, which this year features a presentation and discussion with Claudia Castro Luna titled The Story Begins With You: Hand, Pen, Paint Brush, Song, will be held Wednesday February 5 from 6:00-9:00 PM in the Recital Hall (COM 107).

All-Campus Mentoring Day: Winter Mentoring Day will be held in week 7, on Wednesday, February 19, from 2:00 to 4:00. This year focuses on the academic statement, paths of study, individual study, and preparation for graduate school at Evergreen. Please share this event with your students. Better yet, bring your class to Mentoring Day or encourage students to sign up for one-on-one faculty statement support.

SURF Applications: Thank you for turning in your SURF applications. We will be reviewing these and listing SURF projects for students to apply to very soon.

PLATO Series: Faculty proposals for the 2020-21 PLATO Lecture Series are due February 7, 2020. This lecture series is meant to enhance the understanding of computing within the liberal arts tradition, both at Evergreen and in the larger Olympia community. Application information is available here: https://www.evergreen.edu/academicgrants/plato-lecture-series-awards

The Learning and Teaching Commons is seeking feedback from Faculty.  Please consider joining this special Commons Conversation:

What Can Your Commons Do for You? Talk to Us!
Week 6 | Tuesday, February 11th | 12-1 pm (lunch provided) | SEM II B-2107

We are here to support you. Let us know how.

The Academic Deans | 360.867.6810

Kathleen Eamon| Marcia Tate-Arunga | Greg Mullins | Karen Gaul |Elizabeth Williamson| Trevor Speller | Larry Geri

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