Developmentally-Focused Approach to Gathering and Using Information for Student Admission, Learning Support, Curriculum

1. Developmentally-focused Approach to Gathering and Using Information to Inform Student Admission, Learning Support, Curriculum Design, and Teaching Practice Presented @ The SoTL Conference, NWU 26 October 2011 Cheryl.Foxcroft@nmmu.ac.za

2. Session Overview • SoTL – potential and scope • An important HE challenge • Gathering and using information (What info? How? What impact?) for: • Admissions purposes • Guiding learning development and support initiatives • Programme and curriculum design • Enhancing teaching practice (includes instructional design) • Concluding remarks

3. SoTL – potential and scope • The way we “treat” teaching and learning (as not being a scholarly pursuit) removes it from the community of scholars. We must re-connect teaching and learning to the disciplinary and professional communities in which academics pursue their work. • SoTL “has the potential to transform higher education by making the private work of the classroom visible, talked about, studied, built upon, and valued” (Huber & Hutchings, 2005, p. ix). • Multiple levels and forms of SoTL work “can be used to inform and transform teaching and learning in the classroom, program, department, institution, discipline, and broader higher education contexts” (McKinney, 2007, p. 121).

4. Key HE Challenge • Access for success • National Average success rate = 74% • National benchmark for success rates = 80% • Differential success rates for various groups and programmes • Message to academics = improve your success rates!! • Response from academics = How?

5. First get information … but not …

6. Gathering and using information for Admissions purposes:What?How?Impact?

7. Admissions approach followed at NMMU – multi-tiered • Literature review on good admissions practices: • To broaden access, a range of access and articulation routes should be available. • To promote equity of access, admissions criteria and procedures should be sensitive to the different starting points of applicants and seek to include those with the potential to succeed. This includes: • Research-informed criteria • Using a range of information and not relying solely on school performance to make admissions decisions. • Centralized admissions decision-making process

8. Admissions approach followed at NMMU – multi-tiered • Set admissions criteria based on overall school performance (APS) and subject specific criteria at a level where a student is likely to pass 80% of 1st year modules. Applicants who meet the criteria are admitted (Route 1).

9. Subject requirement research

10. Profiles of students passing 80% of modules in Faculty of Science 32 38 5

11. Admissions approach followed at NMMU – multi-tiered • Applicants not meeting the APS and subject requirements but whose APS falls within a certain range are referred for testing on the Access Assessment Battery by the Centre for Access Assessment and Research (CAAR). Test and school results are considered together, using a profile approach, to reach an admission decision (Route 2).

12. Profile approach to decision-making

13. Streaming between programme-types • In faculties where there are a range of diploma and degree programmes in a discipline/field, about 20% of degree applicants who do not meet the direct admissions criteria are accepted/streamed into diploma programmes after access testing • For the 2009-intake, approximately 20% of the applicants who applied for a regular programme were channeled to extended programmes • Variations: • BCom = about 10% channeled to extended programmes, but NHC Accounting = about 27% • BPharm = 17%, but BCur = 58%

14. Retention rate of first time entering students: 2005 - 2009

15. GATHERING AND USING INFORMATION TO GUIDE LEARNING DEVELOPMENT & SUPPORT INITIATIVES: What?How?Impact?

16. NMMU 2010 1st Year Intake: Developmental recommendations 47% of registered intake met direct admission requirements; 53% of registered intake admitted on basis of school & test results

17. Developmental Recommendations per Faculty

18. Providing Faculty Profiles of New Intake Law Faculty

19. Research has shown that: • It is less effective to equip students with generic skills to assist them to succeed outside of their academic disciplines (stand alone approach). However, building academic and student development into curricula (with the assistance of professional support staff) has had variable success as it is dependent on the will of academics and issues of organizational culture (Boughey, 2010; van der Meer & Scott, 2008) (integrative approach). Currently, increasing emphasis is being placed on extending the integrative approach to a more embedded approach where skills are integrally developed as a normal way of helping students to move from being novices to experts in the discourses of their disciplines. The embedded approach requires collaboration involving academics, professional support staff and students.

20. GATHERING AND USING INFORMATION FOR PROGRAMME AND CURRICULUM DESIGN: What?How?Impact?

22. Re-design of Legal Skills Module – adding a numeracy component • Used a combination of information from the CAAR Arithmetic Test performance and subject experts from the Mathematics Department • Arithmetic (Level 1: 0-45): Minimal arithmetic skills. Can: perform simple operations with whole numbers & decimals (+, -, x); calculate an average, given integer numbers; solve simple word problems; identify data represented by simple graphs • Arithmetic (Level 2: 46-74): Basic arithmetic skills. Can: perform basic operations with whole numbers, fractions & decimals (+, -, x, ÷); make conversions among fractions, decimals and percents • Arithmetic (Level 3: 75-92): Adequate arithmetic skills. Divide whole numbers by decimals and fractions; solve simple word problems involving fractions, ratios and % increase & decrease. • Arithmetic (Level 4: 93-100):Substantial arithmetic skills. Solve complex word problems using average, percent and proportional reasoning

23. Re-design of Legal Skills module – Introducing a Numeracy component • Students were categorised according to their performance on the Arithmetic Test, which in turn determined the stucture of the Numeracy Skills module for them. Students were categorised into three categories, guided by the Arithmetic Progress Map and CAAR research on academic performance and performance on the AAB.

24. First Cohort Pass (@ >=70%) and Fail in Legal Skills –Numeracy relative to Arithmetic Proficiency Levels

25. GATHERING AND USING INFORMATION FOR ENHANCING TEACHING PRACTICE (INCLUDES INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN): What?How?Impact?

26. Developmental Recommendations EBEIT Average 2007 Success Rate for School of Engineering = 64.5%

27. Collaborative HEADS, EBEIT, DALS – Teaching & Learning (HED-TL) Project • A mentorship programme is offered by senior students and 2 retired engineers – with CTLM providing the training, support and coordination of the mentors. Focus is on supporting first years in their learning; sharing academic success strategies, and referring students to resources. The engineers assist students to develop work-related skills. • Adopted a blended approach in which academics and professional support staff collaborate to embed key literacies in curricula and teaching practice. The project involves academics offering modules to 1st year students in electrical and mechanical engineering, academics from the Department of Applied Language Studies, and language and academic development staff from the Centre for Teaching, Learning & Media.

28. Collaborative T&L of literacies through language • Effort was put into designing, drafting and piloting an assessment rubric for writing laboratory reports. One of the ‘strategic’ purposes of this was to align teaching activities and learning outcomes with assessment criteria and anticipated levels of achievement. • A second strategic purpose was to make explicit what lecturers expect students to do when writing laboratory reports in terms of learning outcomes and criteria. • Desired outcome was to enable more consistent ways of formatively assessing and responding to drafts of laboratory reports by diverse (lecturers & language and literacy educators, writing assistants & students). • Used “team teaching” to explain concepts such as “revising” and “editing” and to analyse & critique examples of laboratory reports

29. Learning Enhancement Checklist Results

30. LEC – most significant issues - Lectures

31. Success Rates: School of Engineering

32. Technology-enhanced learning support • e-PAL (electronic peer-assisted learning) is offered in challenging modules by e-PAL facilitators (senior students) who provide real-time synchronous sessions which are supplemented with asynchronous support and discussion opportunities among students. • In 2011 the blended offering of face-to-face SI and e-PAL was compared. It was found that: • 66% of the students indicated that they found e-PAL beneficial. • 68% of students indicated that they enjoyed the way e-PAL was offered. • 56 % of the students indicated that they preferred the blended combination of e-PAL and face-to-face SI in the module, whereas 22% preferred only e-PAL and 19% only face-to-face SI. • Students who made use of the SI and e-PAL support outperformed those who didn’t by 12% in the module. • This is consistent with international research which shows that a blended approach is best as F2F is still NB for modern students (engagement with TEL is complex, differentiated & contradictory).

33. Reading Comprehension & TEL Instructional Design RC Progress Map Expanding:Able to comprehend short passages that are characterised by uncomplicated ideas, straightforward presentation and subject matter that largely reflects everyday experience. Can recognise main idea & less central ideas. Functional: Able to comprehend short passages that are characterised by moderately complicated ideas & organisation. Can answer questions that require: synthesizing info, including gauging a point of view & intended audience; recognisingorganising principles in a paragraph or a passage Identify contradictory or contrasting statements

34. Overall/Collective Impact of a range of initiatives on NMMU success rates

35. Impact on researching into T&L and student access and success • For the “case studies” covered in this presentation for the period 2009 to 2011: • 3 masters studies completed on access for success and student retention • 1 completed doctoral study and 2 doctoral studies in progress • Growth in interdisciplinary conference and workshop presentations (10) related to T&L and access for success • Growth in interdisciplinary subsidized research outputs (3 in conference proceedings, 1 journal article and 5 manuscripts in development).

37. References • Huber & Hutchings • McKinney, K. (2007). Enhancing learning through the scholarship of teaching and learning: the challenges and joys of juggling. San Fancisco: Josey-Bass

38. Publications •  Harran, M. (2011). Engineering and Language Discourse Collaboration: Practice RealitiesAcross Disciplines. B. Collier-Reed (Ed.), Proceedings of the 1st Biennial Conference of the South African Society for Engineering Education (SASEE). Cape Town: SASEE. • Harran, M., Knott, A. & Weir, C. (in press). Responding electronically to student drafts on campus: Encouraging or discouraging dialogue? South African Journal of Higher Education (SAJHE) 25(7).  • Israel, H.F. (2011). Engineering soft skills? My responsibility. A case study at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. B. Collier-Reed (Ed.), Proceedings of the 1st Biennial Conference of the South African Society for Engineering Education (SASEE). Cape Town: SASEE. • Knott, A., Lombard, H., & McGrath, P. (2011) Towards collaborative practices of academic citizenship in mechanical engineering education at a comprehensive university: A critique of discourses. B. Collier-Reed (Ed.) Proceedings of the 1st Biennial Conference of the South African Society for Engineering Education (SASEE). Cape Town: SASEE.