Conference Day Two: Friday, 28th June 2019
8:30 am - 9:00 am CONFERENCE REGISTRATION & ARRIVAL COFFEE
9:00 am - 9:10 am OPENING REMARKS
9:10 am - 9:50 am OPENING KEYNOTE CASE STUDY: Ensuring University Stakeholders Maximise Student Experience and Retention by Partnering and Bringing Support Services into the Curriculum
This presentation explores the integrated functional model of student support and development used by the Student Retention and Success portfolio at the University of Tasmania. The model enables a connected, multidisciplinary approach to embedding student services, programs and interventions in curriculum that is driven by business intelligence, networked partnerships and collaborations with academic disciplines.
- Informs the work of the portfolio and ensures that resources are data-driven and deployed to points of most need and impact for students
- Enables purposely packaged, proactive and reactive, connected interventions across Academic Success, Student Wellbeing and Employability themes.
- Reflections on successful outcomes and challenges
9:50 am - 10:30 am CASE STUDY: Evolving the Definition of Employability and Providing Skills for a Global Future with Innovative Work Integrated Learning Initiatives
This RMIT Work Integrated Learning (WIL) Initiative is an innovative approach to enhancing students' professional skills while on placement through provision of coached and scaffolded embedded learning activities. As an expert in this area, Professor Margaret Jollands explores the project, current employability models and why work experience is not the panacea for all.
- Exploring current and future graduate skills gap
- Examining student perspectives and how institutions can enhance work placement quality
- What can we do to help staff develop new skills needed to bring employability into the curriculum
10:30 am - 11:00 am MORNING TEA & NETWORKING BREAK
11:00 am - 11:40 am CASE STUDY: Strengthening Student Experience by Ensuring University Branding Compliments Student Outcomes
Student experience begins before attending campus and even enrollment; it begins the moment they learn about the institution and the promises delivered for their future. That is why at La Trobe University innovative strategies focused on retention and success are targeted throughout the whole student life-cycle – with branding as the beginning of that lifecycle.
- Ensuring that branding compliments course delivery and outcomes for students
- Involving various stakeholder for student success initiatives –including students
- Analysing the outcomes of student retention and success to measure success and drive further improvements
11:40 am - 12:20 pm PANEL: Providing More Frequent and Improved Access to Effective Career Advice and Work Opportunities
A professional and successful career is what ultimately drives students to tertiary education. As a result, innovative strategies to frequently connect students with career building opportunities and motivating them to complete their course by reminding them of their career aspirations will drive greater retention rates.
- Maintaining a personalised connection with students and driving them towards their career goals
- Improving external stakeholder communication and providing students with active experience building opportunities
12:20 pm - 1:20 pm NETWORKING LUNCH BREAK
1:20 pm - 2:00 pm CASE STUDY: An Innovative Framework to Enable Educators to Support Student Success
The University of Newcastle is implementing an innovative new education framework to ensure an environment that promotes academic and social success for students. A critical component of that framework is enhancement of the capability of our educators. Initiatives within the framework are supported by a higher University profile for educational excellence and a strong focus on evaluation of outcomes, to ensure that educators are engaged and their efforts are effective. Specific initiatives include:
• Grants and awards to support innovative teaching; and regular opportunities to share ideas across the university
• Support for innovative curriculum and course design;
• Acknowledgement of the importance of students in supporting their peers; and
• Encouragement of scholarship in teaching and learning, particularly in improving equity of outcomes
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm SOLUTIONS CLINIC
- Strategies to achieve personalisation for students at a large scale
- Exploring nested courses and micro-credentialing: Is it better to start a student in a bachelor and drop-out with a smaller accreditation or start students on small courses which they can accumulate into a higher credential
Solutions Clinics are designed to give participants strategies and tools to deal with their most pressing challenges. The room will split into tables, where each table member will share their biggest challenge, before collectively deciding which issue to investigate in more detail.
The table will then elect a facilitator/note taker who will record the topic being explored and the ideas of the table. After 20 minutes of discussion, the facilitator of each table will then report back to the rest of the audience on their problem and the potential solutions.
3:00 pm - 3:30 pm AFTERNOON TEA & NETWORKING BREAK
3:30 pm - 4:10 pm CASE STUDY: IGNITE: Arrive & Thrive - Enabling Early Engagement through a Short Self-Paced On-Line Module
Western Sydney University, The College has embarked on an exciting new initiative, Pre Learning Pod: Early Engagement of Students, also known as IGNITE: Arrive & Thrive.
IGNITE is an emerging initiative that aims to better prepare students for their future studies, from the point of receiving an offer and before the commencement classes. Informed by Transition Pedagogy, IGNITE is a short self-paced on-line module designed to be an engaging, interactive, and a fun learning experience that uses digital badging to recognise the attainment of specific skills, rather than a formal assessment structure. Working together in partnership with Students as Partners to co-design, co-develop and co-create a distinctive learning experience, The College set out to conceive an early student engagement initiative that aims to enhance the student’s sense of belonging to a community of learners at Western.
The yearlong project went live in January 2019 and IGNITES students’ passion to unlock their potential, embrace their diversity as learners and paves their way into a smooth transition into The College. At the time of writing, IGNITE was being rolled out for the first time to a cohort of incoming College students.
There are three short interactive modules designed to jump start their own academic journey:
• Module 1 focuses on positive mindfulness to help students build resilience, as well as time and organisational management
• Module 2 maps students’ course to their career aspirations in preparation for a disrupted future world of work
• Module 3 equips students with key skills for using cutting edge digital technologies to thrive in any learning environment.
4:10 pm - 4:50 pm CASE STUDY: Integrating a Personalised Planner for Orientation Week to Improve Participation and Retention
In 2019 Curtin University integrated a digital personalised orientation planner for first year students. After reflecting on the 2018 prototype and strategising delivery improvements they found exponential growth in participation (55% + increase in average attendance throughout O-Week), insights, and student experience.
- Exploring the design and integration of the planner: What was the reaction from students and teachers
- How a personalised and digital approach strengthened program delivery, student engagement and community development
- Reflecting on collected evidence to adapt and improve the design and delivery every consecutive year
