Vol. 18 No. 1 Sept./Oct. 2020
From the Editor Upside down, chaos, unprecedented and unparalleled have all been used to describe the situation that COVID-19 has thrown the world into. Leaving no one unaffected, higher education has been forced to respond. E-Source for College Transitions is an online publication with a mission to provide practitioner-based ideas and solutions for student success challenges. Thus, we took this moment in time to ask our colleagues about the solutions that were born out of the pandemic and how their experiences and lessons learned through pivoting to remote delivery would be leveraged post-pandemic. A call for proposals was posted, and colleagues Dr. Rebecca Campbell across the country responded by describing how, in what felt like the blink of an eye, they transitioned their resources and services for remote delivery. In many ways, this was no surprise, as our fellow directors, program coordinators, advisors, and postsecondary professionals have long been expected to provide resources and services on shoe-string budgets, without physical or technological infrastructures, and skeleton crews. However, in other ways, their experiences were surprising as the rich descriptions contained innovations, creativity, practicality, and resourcefulness that seem unimaginable to conceive of in the chaos of COVID-19. Rightly so, the responses expressed tremendous pride in their solutions, their staff, and their students. In this issue, we are so very pleased to share these accounts. Where possible, their stories were combined thematically based on the types of resources and services that shifted to remote delivery and synthesized into a single narrative by a member of the editorial review board. During the development of this issue, we were frequently struck by the expressions of hope and ingenuity. We hope you find similar inspiration as well as some of the practical solutions that E-Source is known for.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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First-Year Seminar and Faculty Pivot to Remote Teaching Faculty and staff at four higher education institutions quickly transition to remote teaching.
Access and the Online Academic Success Center
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The academic success centers at Arizona State and Texas A&M find viable ways to offer services online and effectively communicate the new means of access to their campus communities.
Central Michigan Orientation Goes Online Central Michigan develops an online new student orientation for entering students, with synchronous and asynchronous options.
Supplemental Instruction in a Time of COVID-19: Challenges and Solutions Three higher education institutions quickly shift to remote supplemental instruction and discover solutions that will strengthen their programs in the future.
The Setbacks and Successes of Remote Tutoring
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WWW.SC.EDU/FYE/ESOURCE
From the Editor
With COVID-19 placing traditional, inperson tutoring on hold, a community college, regional HBCU, and private research university share their experiences migrating tutoring online.
Transitioning to Online Mentoring and Online Mentor Selection Utah Valley University adapts its Mentor Program to a remote format and retools its mentor selection process to address this new model.
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First-Year Seminar and Faculty Pivot to Remote Teaching Rebecca Campbell, Editor, E-Source for College Transitions First-year seminars are perhaps the most widely recognized strategic initiative within the first-year experience and are a driving force in first-year student success on many campuses. Broadly defined, the first-year seminar (FYS) is a course designed to integrate students socially and academically into the university. Its design is based on Tinto’s (1993) model of student departure, which highlights the connection between student engagement and persistence. The FYS has also been influenced by Astin’s (1984, 1993) work on shaping the college experience to ensure positive outcomes. In March 2020, in-person classes in higher education pivoted to an online delivery mode in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic. For the FYS, this posed particular challenges because of its mission of social connectivity; the FYS has traditionally avoided hosting its courses online due to the difficulties in fostering engagement and facilitating community and connections within the university context. Similarly, disciplinary faculty historically faced challenges in moving courses online while maintaining the academic rigor that allowed students to meet general education or pre-requisite requirements. The sudden and swift move to online instruction gave faculty very little time to adapt. Hodges et al. (2020) note the distinction between online teaching and learning and “emergency remote teaching.” To acknowledge the efforts of faculty in making the transition in such a constricted timeframe that limited their ability to carefully design and plan instruction (Hodges et al., 2020), the term emergency remote teaching (ERT) will be used here. This article highlights how two campuses retooled their FYS for online delivery. It also includes the experiences of two faculty who pivoted disciplinary courses. In each of these situations, creativity, innovation, compassion, and resilience abound.
Two First-Year Seminar Pivots University of Tampa Located in Tampa, Florida, the University of Tampa is a private university with more than 9,600 students. It offers 124 sections of its FYS as a required, one-credit, graded course with an enrollment of 2,200. Only 1% of courses were online before March 2020, so many members of faculty were unfamiliar with online pedagogy when the ERT transition came. Nevertheless, their shift focused on maintaining a high standard of social integration despite the potential isolation of the online modality. University of Tampa faculty collaborated online and via email with the local community, alumni, and parents of students. The brainstorming sessions resulted in a novel way to embed social integration into the online FYS by implementing a three-pronged approach: (a) innovative class activities, (b) creative partnerships, and (c) connections.
Innovative Class Activities
Using Zoom, faculty hosted online movie gatherings and “UT Jeopardy” games about the campus and local community. Prizes
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The University of Tampa offers 124 sections of its first-year seminar with an enrollment of 2,200. Only 1% of its courses were online before March 2020, but staff were committed to maintaining a high standard of social integration after the switch to remote classes. were mailed to students’ homes. One instructor held “Waffle Wednesdays” where students enjoyed their favorite breakfast together on Zoom. Others held “bring your dog to class” day, online study sessions, and trivia nights.
Creative Partnerships
Partnerships were also made to build community and further encourage social integration: one with the campus bookstore and another with a prominent, local scholar. The FYE program teamed with Barnes & Noble to create an online form that allowed faculty to send pre-approved University of Tampa gifts to students. Each gift was accompanied by a note from a peer mentor (e.g. ,“Here is a little something to remind you of your second home.”) This gesture kept the university in the minds and hearts of students. The university also hosted a COVID-19 Q&A session about the origins, pathology, and threats of the coronavirus with Eric Freundt, an Oxford University graduate, national science scholar, and director of the university’s Office of Undergraduate Research and Inquiry. This event connected 25% of the FYS students to the university’s resident expert, and many students included their parents and other family members in the session.
Connections
Through the use of online technology, parents and alumni were included in class events. For example, one course invited parents to watch students perform brief skits. Alumni with expertise in business, law enforcement, health care, and more were invited to give lectures and demonstrations related to some of the themed
FYS courses. Alumna Gretchen Croton, president of a local American Civil Liberties Union chapter and a nationally recognized legal expert on human trafficking, engaged with the students in a legally themed FYS section. Similarly, a forensic technician gave a demonstration to a forensics themed FYS section, and an art themed FYS section was treated to a virtual painting exhibit from a local artist. Due to statewide disruptions of business, the FYS courses leveraged the open schedules of these experts and built personal connections to content and career pathways.
University of Minnesota Twin Cities Located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the University of Minnesota Twin Cities is a public university with more than 49,000 students. Twelve sections of its academic success courses (LASK) were quickly moved online. The students enrolled in LASK typically are first-year or transfer students, and the two-credit course is taught by the coordinator of Student Academic Success Services and a team of graduate instructors. The course is based on a holistic model focused on five academic success factors: (a) active learning, (b) study skills, (c) life balance, (d) self-awareness, and (e) campus engagement. With the help of 1:1 academic coaching, students are supported as they identify strategies within the five factors that can help facilitate their academic goals. A fully online curriculum for LASK had already been developed and piloted, so two sections were already fully online in Spring 2020. This allowed the university to draw from the knowledge and experiences of its online instructors to support colleagues who taught in person. LASK coaching sessions were moved to Zoom and reduced by 30 minutes to accommodate unexpected staffing losses, but this online coaching model allowed more opportunities for commuter and working students to participate. There were also some students who simply preferred the virtual meeting format.
Two Disciplinary Pivots Arizona State University Arizona State University is a public institution located in Tempe, Arizona, with more than 74,000 students. Clinical assistant professor Jill Oliver moved online five sections of Introduction to Educational Psychology for upper-division students in Arizona State’s professional education program. Immediately there were logistical issues, and solutions were needed for identifying resources that could be made available asynchronously within the university’s learning management system. These included additional readings and out-of-class activities. This ERT pivot also prioritized fostering community, so in-class discussions were moved and translated to online discussions. Faculty used Zoom to connect with students, but the disparities between students’ living environments quickly became a challenge. For synchronous class sessions, things like crying children, barking dogs, the stress of maintaining attention, and the anxiety related to reliable Internet became substantial obstacles. Synchronous class time was reduced as a result. The conflict between encouraging community and accommodating stay-at-home challenges made for difficult and painful decisions.
Merrimack College Located in North Andover, Massachusetts, Merrimack College is a private institution with more than 3,700 undergraduate students. Professor Jimmy Franco moved his chemistry courses online using Zoom. Because of the problem-solving nature of the chemistry courses, Franco experimented with the Zoom’s whiteboard feature but found it too cumbersome. Instead, whiteboard applications for the iPad became a valuable teaching companion. Franco also used virtual office hours to maintain support and connect with students during stay-at-home mandates. Merrimack College also added opportunities for student coaching and tutoring. Coaches reached out through Zoom specifically to support students’ transition to online learning, but wellness checks and personalized coaching were included. Tutoring was also moved to Zoom, and students appreciated how that allowed them to “finish off the semester strong.”
Lessons Learned Common themes emerged from these ERT transitions, regardless of institution type, size, and course. Each pivot included connectedness, student support, and the spirit of experimentation.
The University of Minnesota Twin Cities’s academic success course is based on a holistic model that focuses on five academic success factors. A fully online curriculum for already been developed and piloted before the pandemic, which helped staff quickly move 12 sections online.
These ERT pivots demonstrate the institutions’ desire to facilitate both faculty–student and student–student connections. The strategies implemented to maintain these connections included activities that were playful and social (e.g., Waffle Wednesdays, “bring your dog to class” day) as well as activities that shifted traditions online (e.g., office hours, class discussions). The shared commitment to connectivity is a testament to higher education’s ethic of care and compassion. Similarly, each of the narratives included details about how students were supported during their ERT transitions. Those supports included personal and academic efforts. Wellness checks, deadline extensions, and other tactics were used to ensure that students were able to thrive. Tutoring, office hours, and online
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study sessions were used to make sure students were academically able to complete their coursework. Finally, each of the narratives included a spirit of experimentation that speaks to faculty’s ability to quickly adopt, test, reflect, and advance, all within a context of stress and uncertainty. For example, Franco piloted the Zoom whiteboard and quickly adopted an iPad application instead. Oliver experimented with synchronous course delivery but modified her approach to accommodate crying children, and she mitigated the social disparities visible in students’ homes by asking them to use generic backgrounds. This experimentation is different from traditional higher education course design where a course is typically taught much like it was before, with few changes. However, in Spring 2020, higher education found itself in a grand pedagogical experiment as it pivoted to ERT. What is striking in these accounts is the faculty’s resiliency in accomplishing not just the massive shift to online but also how they managed multiple, micro-pivots to ensure the wellbeing and academic success of their students.
Note. Special thanks to those who contributed to the development of
this article: Anthony P. LaRose, Associate Professor, Political Science & International Studies, University of Tampa; Edesa Scarborough, Director of First-Year Experience, University of Tampa; Jenny Steiner, Coordinator of Student Academic Success Services, University of Minnesota Twin Cities; Jimmy Franco, Associate Professor & Chair of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Merrimack College; and Jill Oliver, Clinical Assistant Professor of Teacher Preparation, Arizona State University.
References Astin, A. W. (1984). Student involvement: A developmental theory for higher education. Journal of College Student Personnel, 25(4), 297-308. Astin, A. W. (1993). What matters in college? Four critical years revisited. JosseyBass. Hodges, C., Moore, S., Lockee, B., Trust, T., & Bond, A. (March, 2020). The difference between emergency remote teaching and online learning. Educause Review. https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/3/the-differencebetween-emergency-remote-teaching-and-online-learning Tinto, V. (1993). Leaving college: Rethinking the causes and cures of student attrition (2nd ed.). University of Chicago Press.
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CONTACT Jimmy Franco francoj@merrimack.edu
Edesa Scarborough escarborough@ut.edu
Jenny Steiner stei1169@umn.edu
Jill Oliver joliver@asu.edu
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Access and the Online Academic Success Center Emily Shreve, Associate Director of Academic Transitions, University of Nevada, Las Vegas What does it take to move an entire suite of academic support services online? With tens of thousands of students to serve, how can this be accomplished within the 300-person limit of a Zoom room? On many campuses, a wide range of student success programs, from academic coaching to transfer student programming, are easy for students to access via the academic success center. These are welcoming spaces where students can be directed to the academic support services they need. The March 2020 closure of campuses made necessary the transition to remote academic success services. Potentially, such a shift would disrupt the essential work of these centers and hinder their effectiveness at a time when students deeply needed their support. The academic success centers at Arizona State University and Texas A&M University—both large, four-year, public institutions—found viable ways to offer services online and, most essentially, to communicate with the campus community about the new means of access. The impact of the remote shift will be long-lasting, as both centers have begun to reimagine their future program delivery options in light of what this move has revealed about student access needs.
The Transition The Academic Success Center (ASC) at Texas A&M provides academic coaching, tutoring, supplemental instruction (SI), developmental education courses, transfer student programming, and more for transfer students, students on academic probation, and the general undergraduate population. Staff moved all services online within two weeks of the campus closing. Academic coaches offered appointments through email, Zoom, and phone. Classes, tutoring, and SI sessions were also conducted through Zoom. Transfer student peer mentors held Zoom appointments and live chat sessions. Aside from the time needed to learn the new technologies, there was an additional financial cost associated with the transition as ASC staff had to purchase webcams, digital writing tablets, and other equipment to provide these interactive services. Similar to Texas A&M’s ASC, the University Academic Success Programs (UASP) at Arizona State offer academic support through SI, tutoring, and more across four campuses and 11 different centers. Though some UASP tutoring services had been online for more than 10 years, staff had to adapt to moving all services online with Zoom. The writing centers were given their own Zoom rooms, while all subject-area tutoring was collapsed into a single Zoom room to provide easy access for students. An informal collaboration between the Texas A&M and Arizona State centers influenced their similar approaches to online services. UASP took the lead by providing webinars on using Zoom for tutoring and SI, which were attended by ASC staff from Texas A&M.
Reaching Students Not only did academic success centers have to manage the technical transition, they also had to find ways to communicate with students and campus partners who were now widely dispersed. Informing the broader campus community of the newly online services was a major area of emphasis at Texas A&M and Arizona State. For classes and SI sessions, staff did their best to keep schedules that had been
Staff from Texas A&M’s Academic Success Center shared photos of their unofficial emotional support animals (i.e., their pets) on Twitter. set at the start of the semester; this reduced confusion, as students were already used to accessing services at those times. The websites at Texas A&M and Arizona State were updated, and targeted emails were sent to advisors and students. Students in developmental education classes were contacted by phone due to concerns about access to technology. Special social media campaigns were launched by the ASC marketing director, and several staff members were interviewed for campus publications. Engaging students was not just a matter of marketing but also of rethinking when and what services to offer. The ASC at Texas A&M added new tutoring times to expand opportunities for students to attend. It also shared tips on how to be successful during the COVID-19 outbreak. At Arizona State, UASP staff developed new content-specific workshops to provide sufficient coverage of topics where students regularly struggled. These workshops were facilitated live via Zoom and recorded, so they could be accessed at any time. Early feedback from Texas A&M students has been positive, highlighting the ease of use made possible by the new formats. Results from an ASC end-of-semester survey indicated that 81% of students who used online services after the shutdown were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with the programs. One student observed, “I enjoyed online coaching a lot because it was so simple.” With email used as a form of academic coaching, a student noted, “I feel like the coaching meetings back and forth through email were extremely helpful.” Another student commented on the convenience of having SI sessions online: “I liked SI being online because I could have a whole hour to study before it instead of getting to campus and having to find a parking spot in time. It made it more accessible to me.”
Future Considerations These new methods of reaching students are likely to continue, even after the global pandemic ends. UASP staff at Arizona State are confident the content they created in the shift to online services will continue after in-person services resume. Arizona State math faculty are excited about this expansion of UASP’s services and have been
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offering additional insight into areas that need to be addressed. A next step will be to determine whether content sessions are only offered online or complemented by in-person sessions. One key consideration for academic success centers is recognizing the value of online academic support as a way to reach a wider audience due to increased service availability and some students’ preference for virtual venues. UASP’s staff noted some students who had never used tutoring services embraced the opportunity because it was offered online. These services have also reached a broader student audience, with more online-only students appreciating the additional offerings. Work still remains to reach students with limited access to technology and/or the Internet. Arizona State’s plans for Fall 2020 include opening UASP to limited in-person services with socialdistancing requirements, but much of UASP operations will still be maintained via Zoom. Arizona State also plans to hold UASP open houses online for targeted groups, namely first-year and transfer students, in order to introduce them to online tutoring and academic support. For ASC staff at Texas A&M, the online transition forced them to adapt sooner than was planned but with positive impact. Considerations for offering some online tutoring had been a longstanding goal, and ASC staff now see the value in offering in-person and online services. Most ASC programming will remain online-only for the Fall 2020 semester because of campus safety precautions. Students can request face-to-face academic coaching appointments, but
the academic coach and the student will be required to follow Texas A&M policies regarding face coverings. Every effort will be made to provide in-class instruction for students who are enrolled in developmental education courses, with classroom seating and capacity limits that follow university and social distancing guidelines. Finally, a virtual magazine has been created for Texas A&M’s transfer peer mentor program to provide new transfer students with updated information and transfer requirements. Moving forward, a challenge for academic success centers will be to determine the balance of in-person and online services that is ideal to meet their students’ needs. Can, and should, institutions maintain the role of academic success centers as a central gathering place for student support programs as modes of access proliferate and concerns over limited on-campus space grow? Academic success centers will need to ensure academic support is provided in a way that reaches the broadest audience—especially as students come to expect more availability—without compromising quality or stretching its staff too thin. At Arizona State and Texas A&M, the commitment remains to provide quality services during a time of uncertainty.
Note. Special thanks to those who contributed to the development
of this article: Sarah Bennet, Associate Director, University Academic Success Programs, Arizona State University; and Kathleen Speed, Associate Director of Tutoring and Supplemental Instruction, Academic Success Center, Texas A&M University.
CONTACT Sarah Bennett slbennett@asu.edu
Kathleen Speed kspeed@tamu.edu
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Before the COVID-19 pandemic closed Arizona State’s campus, its University Academic Success Programs offered students academic support through supplemental instruction, tutoring, and more.
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Central Michigan Orientation Goes Online Rebecca Campbell, Editor, E-Source for College Transitions In response to COVID-19, Central Michigan University (CMU) transitioned all in-person sessions of its New Student Orientation (NSO) to a remote format. CMU is a public university with more than 20,000 students on its main campus in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. Typically, it hosts four NSO sessions in the spring for new transfer students and 15 sessions over the summer for entering first-year students and their families. The sessions are each a single day, and most students attend NSO by July. One significant outcome of NSO is getting students registered for a full year of courses. Additional NSO goals are to:
Instead of the traditional messages about where to stay while visiting Mount Pleasant and where to park on campus, CMU staff created messages about testing devices beforehand (e.g., tablets, computers, smartphones), accessing the virtual orientation, and who to call if there were technical issues. Staff anticipated the most pressing questions, concerns, and stressors of new students and their families, and embedded relevant information in NSO content. Live sessions acknowledged the gravity of the pandemic head-on, addressing the challenges for students and families and how CMU would support them.
• create a sense of belonging and connection with the university; • promote meaningful relationships with other students, staff, and faculty; • explore campus services, resources, and opportunities for student engagement; • familiarize students with CMU policies, including academic and social expectations; • review academic program options and graduation requirements while building an individualized course schedule tailored to the student’s intended area of study; and • introduce the academic rigor and importance of faculty engagement. A remote NSO model was developed to maintain a consistency with these program goals. Contingency planning for the remote format began in early March for the sessions scheduled in April and May to meet students’ needs and to pilot a model that would eventually be scaled up for the larger groups of students expected in June. The first remote NSO occurred on April 14 and offered synchronous and asynchronous options. The synchronous experience consisted of a live, two-hour session hosted via Cisco WebEx with the first hour including a welcome from the CMU president, speeches from student mentors, an overview of the university’s core values, and content framed through “5 lessons for student success.” In the second hour, students entered smaller WebEx spaces led by an academic advisor and with student mentors assigned by academic interests. Students attended half-hour, virtual advising appointments scheduled through Microsoft Bookings, and optional virtual meetings with career development specialists, success coaches, and financial aid advisors were available to students on the same day. The asynchronous experience included video messages from various CMU departments and e-magazine formats of the publications students and families would have received in person. By early May, all summer NSO programs were transitioned to the virtual format. To scale the synchronous components and maintain a smaller virtual audience, four concurrent sessions of the opening program and 14 advising team meetings were held simultaneously on each orientation day in June. By July 1, more than 2,500 new students and family members had attended an online NSO, on par with point-in-time attendance in 2019.
As part of Central Michigan’s effort to humanize its online orientations, mentors were mailed a stack of postcards, which they used to send personal notes to every new student. The COVID-19 coronavirus forced CMU staff to reconsider the role and purpose of NSO, particularly in how it facilitated the student’s transition to the university. Before the pandemic, CMU solely relied on face-to-face experiences to meet students’ onboarding and transition needs. Remote orientation was reframed as a critical starting point, and as a means to refer students and families to ongoing support and services throughout the summer. The synchronous components and virtual appointments offered a more personal experience than the asynchronous video messages. Based on assessment data, CMU staff were confident the remote NSO effectively initiated students’ transitions to CMU, but they lamented the loss of in-person interactions with students, faculty, and colleagues. The interpersonal experiences were simply not the same in a virtual environment, and students missed out on a memorable visit to the CMU campus. Despite its drawbacks, there are plenty of reasons to build on the remote NSO model in the future. Based on initial, positive student and family feedback, a remote orientation experience is likely to be offered as an option for select student populations. Specifically, the remote sessions were more accessible for transfer students, adult learners, and out-of-state students. Additionally, CMU will continue to offer self-paced, online learning modules for new students and
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CONTACT Alex Kappus alex.kappus@gmail.com
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An example of a slide used to engage online orientation attendees. families. Finally, due to the successful pivot online, campus partners have been encouraged to offer online opportunities, such as virtual appointments and social media events, throughout the summer. Similar outreach efforts are expected to be offered into the future.
Note. Special thanks to Alex Kappus, former Associate Director, Office of Student Success, Central Michigan University, for his contributions to the development of this article.
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Supplemental Instruction in a Time of COVID-19: Challenges and Solutions Amelia V. Noël-Elkins, Interim Assistant Vice President for Student Success, Illinois State University Created at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, supplemental instruction (SI) is known throughout higher education as an effective tool for supporting students’ academic success. SI is facilitated by trained peer leaders who have successfully completed difficult courses. Sessions are traditionally offered in small, face-toface groups, but SI programs needed to quickly find a new way to support students after campuses closed in March. Rebecca Cofer from Georgia College & State University (GCSU), Lindsey Randolph and Amelia Parnis from Texas A&M University, and Kim Sandlin from Wichita State University shared their experiences moving their SI programs online. Concerns about the quality of student interactions and remote instruction were mingled with the anxieties of the moment.
Targeted Outreach for Targeted Courses All three institutions use SI for specific courses: Texas A&M and GCSU offer SI for STEM courses, and Wichita State provides SI for courses that are historically difficult for students. With the move to online, SI staff had to rethink outreach efforts and use a more targeted approach. Wichita State focused its messaging to first-generation students and worked with other campus tutoring services to share resources, knowledge, and training. Texas A&M used student records and SI attendance patterns to compare attendance before and after the online transition, and sent personalized emails to students inviting them to continue using SI. GCSU increased its social media presence to effectively advertise SI options.
Speed of Transition As was the case for much of higher education, SI programs needed to pivot with incredible speed to maintain continuity of service for students. Texas A&M faced the additional challenge of being shorthanded, but it still trained 60 SI leaders and launched the online program in less than two weeks without a disruption of service for students. At Wichita State, staff were trained, and all of its SI sessions were deployed online within a week.
Training and Technology Training also took on new forms during COVID-19. Wichita State had used some preliminary training on Blackboard and Zoom before the pandemic, but it needed to be scaled up. Meanwhile, GSCU had to develop services on Cisco WebEX, an entirely new platform for them. While learning this new platform, GSCU staff were creating and uploading content to a tutor-specific class housed within its learning management system. A section was devoted to online tutoring that offered techniques, approaches, and policies for the tutors to reference, including understanding FERPA in an online environment, what online learning looks like, and online-specific tutor guides. GSCU now requires this section for all CRLA tutor training. Texas A&M was already holding weekly training for its
SI leaders but moved them to synchronous Zoom sessions when campus closed. SI leaders were given an overview of some of Zoom’s features (i.e., whiteboards, annotations, screen sharing), took turns trying out the different tools, and offered feedback with staff and their peers. After the initial training, SI leaders were asked to demonstrate their knowledge of Zoom to ensure they could effectively help students.
Future Plans The COVID-19 pandemic forced those in charge of SI to find new solutions. Randolph, Parnis, Sandlin, and Cofer agree some of these new solutions can continue to effectively serve students post-pandemic. Cofer said it had never crossed her mind to offer SI online, but she realizes some students are more comfortable in a virtual SI space. Texas A&M indicated student feedback about virtual SI was excellent. Sandlin said Wichita State did an excellent job securing technology resources for their students, thus enabling better opportunities for success in remote learning and providing SI for those students most in need. While the pandemic pivot to online SI was something no campus anticipated, these three institutions have demonstrated how a crisis can reveal new opportunities and evoke the resiliency of staff and students in higher education. As a result of these unprecedented circumstances, program and service improvements were realized, which will benefit students in the future.
CONTACT Rebecca Cofer rebecca.cofer@gcsu.edu
Amelia Parnis a.parnis@tamu.edu
Lindsey Randolph lrandolph@tamu.edu
Kim Sandlin kim.sandlin@wichita.edu
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The Setbacks and Successes of Remote Tutoring Michael Sparrow, Dean of Enrollment Management and Retention, Northampton Community College Tutoring services are an integral component of academic success programs. In small groups and individual appointments, tutors are an important auxiliary academic resource where students can reinforce course content in an informal environment without the pressures of exams or perceived faculty expectations. In addition to the academic benefits, students often forge close mentoring relationships with tutors. These interactions can foster a sense of belonging, stoke the fire of continued academic inquiry, build academic confidence, and enhance academic performance. Many methods and modalities of tutoring have emerged over the past two decades, but the most popular form on many college campuses remains real-time, face-to-face sessions. This traditional format, often scheduled in college libraries or dedicated academic learning centers, was disrupted in the spring when the COVID-19 pandemic swept through the United States. Colleges and universities quickly transitioned to remote education, and the higher education community has since been musing over the successes and failures of this new learning paradigm. Some staff initially struggled with moving in-person tutoring services to a virtual space, but they would discover innovative solutions fueled equally by necessity and desperation. Representing a community college, a regional HBCU, and a private research university, Mount Wachusett Community College, Benedict College, and The George Washington University, shared their experiences with E-Source for College Transitions. Despite the differences in their enrollment, scope of services, and institutional mission, these institutions had common hitches and highlights.
Setbacks As the academic success teams began to migrate tutoring online, they encountered two common challenges. First was accomplishing this transition with limited time and resources. Each institution was heavily invested in traditional, face-to-face tutoring, and the online pivot was difficult because of the truncated timeline. Before the pandemic, the Academic Support Center at Mount Wachusett provided tutoring exclusively in person and used paper forms to request and track its services. The Academic Commons at George Washington had a similar approach where peer tutoring was offered through appointments, drop-in hours, and weekly review sessions. Benedict’s Student Success Center had just launched it tutor and mentorship program in January 2020 and had to completely recalibrate its approach in March. In each case, the existing tutoring programs relied on a traditional approach that was tied to physical spaces and a set schedule. The second challenge was technological. Academic success administrators at Benedict and George Washington quickly chose the platforms they would use to facilitate virtual tutoring (e.g., Microsoft Teams and Cisco WebEx, respectively), but the tutors and students were inexperienced with them; staff scrambled to develop the necessary training. Mount Wachusett’s training approach relied on its technologically savvy tutors to guide the students through the remote tutoring platform.
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A graphic promoting the online transition of Benedict College’s tutoring program (Gabrielle Montgomery, Creative Services Director, Benedict College) Additional pedagogical training was provided for the tutors. The focus at Benedict was on distance learning strategies and best practices for engaging students virtually.
Successes Each institution achieved positive outcomes despite the initial complications. George Washington staff collaborated with the university’s library on a virtual chat system, which led to the revelation that students and tutors engaged more often and more personally online. Benedict saw a paradigm shift where online tutoring was integrated into instruction and made a necessary component of course engagement. Students enter college with different levels of economic and academic capital, and colleges oftentimes perpetuate this inequity through the ways they offer student services. Students of limited financial means, for example, might have to work when tutoring services are available, but the remote format allowed tutoring to operate outside of traditional hours. The online modality also gave students more flexibility with where they could access it, which is useful for several student populations (e.g., commuters, adult learners, students who work). To that end, Benedict expanded
its online catalog of tutoring videos to offer students more asynchronous resources. Staff from the three institutions say the experience built a rapport and shared identity. Mount Wachusett employees noted an organizational shift: Staff who had been scattered across locations coalesced around a shared mission and worked as a cohesive unit. The online pivot also triggered an internal audit of how Mount Wachusett marketed its tutoring services to students. Administrators at George Washington’s Academic Commons said their tutors engaged with them more frequently in the new online modality, and the transition challenged Benedict staff to acknowledge there is a meaningful way to foster community and learning in virtual spaces. Like many other colleges and universities, Benedict, George Washington, and Mount Wachusett admit they were caught offguard when COVID-19 made null the traditional, in-person tutoring format. After some growing pains, these schools were encouraged and inspired by the outcomes.
Note. Special thanks to those who contributed to the development
CONTACT Kevin Knudsen kknudsen21@gwu.edu
Stephanie Marchetti smarchetti@mwcc.mass.edu
James Winfield james.winfield@benedict.edu
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of this article: James Winfield, Director of Student Retention, and Jamila Lyn, Director of Specialized Programming, Benedict College; Kevin Knudsen, Director, Academic Commons, Genevieve Afrifa, Program Coordinator, Academic Commons, Laura Arroyo, Program Coordinator, Academic Commons, Schuyler Hunt, Graduate Assistant, Academic Commons, The George Washington University; and Stephanie Marchetti, Director of Academic Support and Testing Services, Mount Wachusett Community College.
UPCOMING EVENTS
ONLINE Proposal Window COURSES
OCTOBER 7-28, 2020
O N T H E F I R S T- Y E A R E X P E R I E N C E AND STUDENTS IN TRANSITION
NOV. 9 - DEC. 4, 2020 INFUSING GROWTH MINDSET INTO YOUR FIRST-YEAR EXPERIENCE Instructor: Amy Baldwin REGISTRATION DEADLINE:
November 3, 2020
WWW.SC.EDU/FYE/OC
WWW.SC.EDU/FYE/ ANNUAL page 11
eSource for College Transitions, Vol. 18 No. 1
September / October 2020
Transitioning to Online Mentoring and Online Mentor Selection Theresa Haug-Belvin, Assistant Professor, Department of Student Leadership & Success Studies, Utah Valley University It is widely established that peer mentors have a positive impact on the undergraduate experience, especially in relation to intellectual and moral development, academic engagement, values clarification, interpersonal skills, and determination of academic and social self-concept (Greenfield et al., 2013; Skipper & Keup, 2017). During this time of COVID-19, Utah Valley University’s Mentor Program continued to provide students with academic mentoring while also modifying the mentor selection process for the upcoming academic year. Dealing with both of these issues at the same time required creativity and flexibility, resulting in some changes that may be implemented moving forward.
About the Program Utah Valley is a public institution in Orem, Utah, with more than 40,000 students. Its Mentor Program is under the Department of Student Leadership and Success Studies, and its mission is to promote holistic student development and advance students to higher levels of academic success, professional preparation, leadership development, and lifelong learning. The Mentor Program’s motto is “Students Helping Students,” and the program hires approximately 40 mentors every year. Peer mentors are competitively selected and work with students individually and through a graded, three-hour student success course that is encouraged but not required. The program’s primary goals are for peer mentors to help students improve their ability to learn, to lead by example, to advocate for their students, to connect students with campus resources, and to be a trusted friend.
Transitioning to Online Mentoring As Utah Valley was transitioning to virtual classes and services, the first priority for the Mentor Program was to help current mentors move to an online environment. Some peer mentors were already assigned to online classes, so they were asked to share best practices with their colleagues. One positive aspect was that mentors had already established relationships with students in their face-to-face classes, and these mentors kept in touch through whatever means they had already established with their students. Some mentors used Canvas, some texted, and others used the GroupMe app. A few peer mentors created short videos to help students manage their new online classes. It was critical for the mentors to continually reach out with support as many students were dealing with the upheaval of leaving campus and switching to online learning.
Selection Process New peer mentors for the upcoming Utah Valley academic year are traditionally selected in the preceding spring semester. During this time, new lead mentors are also chosen, and plans are made for summer training. The selection process for this academic year proved more challenging as a result of the pandemic. Decisions
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were swiftly made to transition from in-person, group interviews to an online format. Applicants were asked to submit a five-minute video addressing various components of the Mentor Program and to submit an essay responding to leadership prompts. The newly appointed lead mentors reviewed the videos and essays and selected applicants for virtual interviews.
Lessons Learned This revised selection process really forced a new approach to identifying desired mentor characteristics and expectations. While the goals for the Mentor Program did not change, priorities shifted to help the current mentors make the online transition while also embarking on new mentor selection. The immediate priority was to support the peer mentors who were helping students and to identify resources that would facilitate their work. It was also important to quickly communicate the revised mentor selection process to interested students. In the future, in-person and group interviews will still be the preferred method, because they provide the opportunity to see how the applicants interact in various group situations. However, Mentor Program staff are considering asking future applicants to submit a video before their interviews, because it allowed them see the applicant’s screen presence and how they engage with the camera. Overall, the pivot to online mentoring and mentor selection went well. Plans for the future include continuing to evaluate and adopt what works well, or better, in a virtual environment.
References Greenfield, G. M., Keup, J. R., & Gardner, J. N. (2013) Developing and sustaining successful first-year programs: A guide for practitioners. Jossey-Bass. Skipper, T. L., & Keup, J. R. (2017). The perceived impact of peer leadership experiences on college academic performance. Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice, 54(1), 95-108. http://doi.org/d5qv
CONTACT Theresa Haug-Belvin theresa.belvin@uvu.edu
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Vol. 18 No. 1 Sept. /Oct. 2020
E-Source for College Transitions (ISSN 1545-5742) is published quarterly by the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition at the University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208. The National Resource Center has as its mission to support and advance efforts to improve student learning and transitions into and through higher education. The First-Year Experience® is a service mark of the University of South Carolina. A license may be granted upon written request to use the term The First-Year Experience. This license is not transferable without the written approval of the University of South Carolina. The University of South Carolina is an equal opportunity institution.
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
SUBMISSIONS GUIDELINES
E-Source for College Transitions is accepting submissions for future issues.
For complete guidelines and issue dates, see http://www.sc.edu/fye/ esource. Articles should adhere to guidelines in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.).
E-Source is published quarterly. The submission deadline for the April 2021 issue is October 19, 2020, and the deadline for the July 2021 issue is January 25, 2021. Articles on topics related to student transitions are welcome, including those focusing on: • college transition issues; • innovative and creative strategies to support student learning, development, and success; • organizational structures and institutional resources for supporting college success; and
Rebecca Campbell
Style: Articles, tables, figures, and references should adhere to current American Psychological Association (APA) style. Format: Submissions should be submitted online as a Microsoft Word document, via our online submission portal. Length: Original feature-length articles should be 1,000-1,500 words. The editor reserves the right to edit submissions for length. Please address all questions and submissions to:
• reviews of books and other resources supporting the work of student success practitioners.
PUBLICATIONS STAFF
Audience: E-Source readers include academic and student affairs administrators and faculty from a variety of fields.
Rebecca Campbell, Editor Email: esource@mailbox.sc.edu
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS Michelle L. Ashcraft
Amy McEvoy
Purdue University
Dalhousie University
Marsha Butler
Amelia Noel-Elkins
Tracey Glaessgen
Emily Shreve
Missouri State University
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Tracy L. Skipper
Charles Haberle
Ahmad Sims
Jennifer Keup
Theresa Haug-Belvin
Michael Sparrow
E-Source Editor
Kevin F. Langston Editor
Stephanie L. McFerrin Graphic Designer
Assistant Director for Publications
Executive Director
Valencia College - West Campus
Providence College
Utah Valley University
Sheryl K. Larson-Rhodes State University of New York at Genesco
Elaine Lewis
Utah Valley University
Illinois State University
Western Kentucky University
Northampton Community College
Elizabeth Turton
Miami University
Kathryn Wilhite Clemson University
Scott Wojciechowski High Point University
