Mōrena koutou e uru ana mai ngā tōpito o te motu, otirā nō rāwāhi ko te Whenua Moemoea. Good morning everyone from NZ and Australia.

Welcome to those from Canada also.

Fantastic, glad you can join us ICALLD friends :)

Hi everyone from Darwin

Sorry don't have my camera installed...

How many of you are there?

We are 12 in the team at SL at VUW

Thanks!

21,000 students at our university in total

Oops! Cut off - we’ll get better of this I’m sure!

yes survey fatigue can be a concerrn

staff surveys are useful and many are very supportive

We have a shared database for our appointments and find the notes very helpful. We also monitor students' engagement with resources.

Thanks Marion, our focus is moving into the classroom with tutors so that we get to the students who do not seek support

I like the idea of evaluation being part of a wider "student pulse" survey. That's a good way to reach the students we don't reach too. Thanks Marion.

with embedded support, we are able to 'count' the number of users who access a learning resources for example, but sometimes difficult to follow up or at least to disaggregate the 'impact' of these resources and those who used them and the grades achieved/outcomes in the unit. Suggestions on how to do this more effectively?

Our institution has two student experience surveys each year and our service is part of those surveys as well.

We also enter database notes after 1:1's and tick many boxes, but nothing is ever generated from these data. It is onerous and feels like a complete waste of time.

How many appointments can students have? Any limits per semester/year?

One per week

No limits really

So each student can have 50 appointments a year?

In theory, yes.

how much time is spent entering such data into this database? also how are students made aware that this info is being kept about them?

Wow.

no. we would monitor over use.

I record student visits in the same way … it's really useful but quite time-consuming

it takes me about 2 mins per student to write in the notes

it can be time consuming, but we build it into our work week.

We have 10 minutes to write notes approx. We would ask students if it is okay to write this down into our notes and students can access them if they wish

No limit is set but we do monitor high users and discuss ways to reduce dependency.

also we have no limits but high users are monitored and recorded in our reports

Std appointments generally spaced around assessment deadlines --so maybe 3-4 times per trimester for undergrads-- but PGs may attend fortnightly at times during their candidature

yes, students know about the notes. They can request them at any time. We follow prtocols of respect and confidentialty

oh I see! thats why appointments are 50mins not an hour... thank you. currently our helpdesk staff enter the data into the our institution wide SMS to help free up our time.

I’d like to ask about the general level of English that your students have. For example, in the sample comments the topics seem more ‘academic writing/language’ based than grammar or sentence construction based. Maybe this is connected to the number of international students at your uni

International students account for around 28% of our users, thought that has dropped considerably since last year. However, academic writing or language applies to native speakers as well.

Xiaodan, dependency will be one of the issues discussed in AALL's (Australian equivalent of ATLAANZ) next Meet the Author event if you'd like to attend: https://www.aall.org.au/meet-the-author/

We have 30 minutes one-to-one, online since March 2020, workshops , theis writing groups on line too, factor in time for data entry following the individual consultations also important for 'break' from zoom

Thanks Rosemary

We do record/share information, with student consent, in relation to support provided relating to those who are specifically referred to us by their tutors, on A+plus.

yes, comparability and consistency would be an advantage

level 4- how do you 'show' that...not direct cause and effect... can an associative relationship be claimed?

Good query Elaine.

Agreed, Elaine. It is hard to get beyond self-report, which is not really a good measure of impact.

Agree, Elaine...this was a big Q from NZQA in our EER last year

Elaine, I think we can claim associative relationship as we can never measure direct impact of our work.

What was NZQA’s response Rosie?

@Elaine: connections based on student feedback, e.g "thanks for your help, I got a good mark for the assignment"

That's a good question and is relevant to the general complextity of evaluation our practice. We can't claim direct cause and effect but we can work towards buiding a picture by using different evalauton tools.

I agree with Xiaodan - associative relationships are challenging - as we are only part of the story -

sorry about my spelling !

Well, they were wanting to see "hard" evidence of this! ….which is why this study is really interesting!

Kirsten and TJ, do you gather samples of student writing or output over time to provide hard evidence of improvement?

"Missed a week" or gradually became more independent?

Kirsten, wondering if many students request to see the notes you make and when they might do so?

I had one yesterday who requested to see them. She had no probs with them

But other than that it might only be about once a year

we've had an occasional request.

BRB

@Anna - growing independence usually not signalled by missed appointments = more likely, in current climate, indicative of external stressors

That's a good idea. I hadn't thought of collecting thesis acknowledgements in a more formal way. We could probably ask the graduate office for that when theses are submitted.

Thanks, I may have misunderstood - I thought about "skipping a week" instead.

to rosemarie - we don't collect student's writing in the way you suggested. tjhat would be hugely time-consuming but it could be an interesting project if we got ethics etc

How do you determine if the student comes a) because they have a need; b) they have formed dependency on the support; c) they come out of habit or as a ‘just in case’ mentality? The notes are from the LA’s; does this align to the student results?

do you use a set of keywords or phrases as relevant when writing notes that can make it easier to identify the progress? e.g. "improvement in"

Apparent resistance to change? Or independent thinking? Learning Advisors can be sounding boards and a student may make an informed decision to take an alternative method based on the information given.

@Tania - that's what this evaluation can show -- same issue recurring or progression

we get to know pretty quickly if studenst are getting dependent. this is a really intersting point. what counts as autonomy?

I like this visualisation of the data.

Visualisation really helpful!

We often discuss the difference between dependency vs. using the meetings as part of their accountability frameworks - especially for students with executive functioning challenges - it can be challenging to determine

It would be intersting to see it plotted over the trimester or academic year to see patterns.

Surely how many times seem would relate to student need and often an equity issue rather than a set amount of time

Agree with you Barbara.

Yes Deb, but sometimes they need nudging out of the nest :)

Not all students become HD students after consultations, unfortunately... Some students are also happy just passing while others want HDs.

Regards autonomy Kirsten, I believe autonomy is independent thought so it may not be a student resisting suggestions, it may be they are becoming independent thinkers and able to come up with their own creative and equally valid way forward - self-directing their learning.

we also monitor institutional success and retention over the previous 3 years to help us identify and target 'at risk' courses which we end up working beside the tutors to help them improve their success rates

I need to go to another meeting. Thanks so much and looking forward to seeing the slides later.

Marion, can I ask whether embedded support is in response to "catching" the students ...attendance of our workshops is very poor (even with variety in time and format) and I am coming to the conclusion that your approach is probably the most effective

yes, some limitations to K model, in relation to 'context/cultural/ factors can sometimes be 'static', and in 'training' contexts more than say. teaching...?

that's great about the notes- agree respectful purposeful and confidential :)

Thank you everyone, I need to head off to another commitment. Greta presentation and lots of takeaways.

the screen did not show your last slide.

Thanks for a useful presentation everyone. I have to leave now as I have a PhD student's milestone panel. Thanks for sharing your evaluation practices!

We have 6 people in our room - hard to fit everything in in 5 mins

I have to leave now - fantastic presentation, thanks!

hi everyone, I also have to leave now. Thank you for an interesting presentation.

Thanks for a very useful presentation. I need to leave now as this is my off work day and I have another committment to fulfil.

too quick?

@ Kirsten- I have a sore throat so 'talking is a little tricky'

Thanks for wonderful session. I have to leave for an appointment now.

I have to head off, too. Thank you. Good luck with the next step and look forward to the findings in the future.

Question: we are collecting very pertinent data - but as my co-ordinator would ask - so what? what are you doing with the data? How can this be used to improve the student experience and success and retention?

agree Dawn

being able to demonstrate impact can show others why this unit/service needs to be funded, staffed , supported

of course, in a Bourdieusian sense, we also need to be able to impose reception

Student motivation and whether their expectations were met is an interesting aspect to capture... because sometimes we won't do what they want (i.e., "fix" their writing/referencing).

Multiple choice-type questions in the data entry form for each student might help. We have a "readiness" indicator 1 to 5 when we see students who have to sit the literacy and numeracy test for initial teacher education students (LANTITE) and ideally would like to see movement from 1 to 4/5 after several consults (but sooooooooooo much depends on student's commitment and effort)

and with increasing competition for ever-diminishing resources, this is also increasingly difficult

Maybe there are different needs between Universities and institutes of technology?

@ Barbara different and changing

Agreed Barbara

I'm just envious of how much support your students have access to.

feedback to tutors gets some really great conversations going

yes, it is a very 'personal' interpersonal relationship, it can be intense, and we can work 'between' the existing structures... human and non-human

We do have several embedded ALLND development and have been making progress through the combination of weekly content delivered by lecturers/tutors, online resources with referrals to resources/advisors through the assignment rubrics

LAs - can act as sounding board; making future LA appointments a way for students to manage their own accountability; also learn about whole student (family, other commitnments, etc)

Thanks so much GTG

Thanks Kirsten, TJ and Deb - enjoyed this presentation again!

thank so much for sharing!

enjoyed today greatly thanks to everyone for sharing so freely

Great presentation and information, enjoyed the collective discussions. Thanks

Thanks for the great presentation.

thankyou everyone always good to 'chat' with colleagues

Thanks for the insightful presentation.

Thank you and Happy New Year :-)

Thanks to colleagues around the world, especially those who got up early or stayed up late to join us.

thanks so much great presentation

Fabulous presentation and a lot to think about.