Educational Development Digest: May 2024

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End of Year Reflection

Pedagogy in Practice | By Catherine Ford, Program Director for Educational Development

The semester is just about wrapped up – for most of you, finals are this week or the next. You may have already had the last class meeting and implemented a few strategies to provide closure and bring the course full circle. You may have asked your students to engage in reflection about the course essential questions or connect the course to past and future learning. Now it is your turn!

The end of the academic year is an excellent time for you to also engage in reflection with a focus on your pedagogy in practice. John Dewey is attributed with writing, “We do not learn from experience…we learn from reflecting on experience.” Let’s reflect on our teaching experiences and continue to grow our practice as a result.

Take a few moments now to reflect on a particular course or the entire year as you consider the following questions:

• What was my best teaching moment this year or term? Why?
• What is one instructional strategy or pedagogical approach that I want to replicate? Why?
• What was a challenging teaching moment this year or term? Why?
• What is one area related to teaching and learning I am curious about to learn more? Why?
• What is one teaching or planning strategy I know I want to try next year? Why?
• What is one teaching or planning strategy I need to do differently? Why?
• If I chose to revise one thing, what might this be? Why?

This reflection doesn’t mean that you need to spend your spare moments this summer redesigning a course or rewriting an assessment. It is an encouragement to spend some time over the next few days or weeks reflecting and writing yourself a few notes for the fall or for when you begin to prepare for the next term. It is worth writing down these reflections. This may be in a notebook, a comment bubble in an digital syllabus, or a series of sticky notes. It may be formal or informal – whatever approach supports your reflection.

If you are looking for opportunities to learn more about teaching and learning strategies and approaches, consider the summer NED course offerings. Do you want to learn more about Equity and Technology or writing effective quiz and test questions? The NED has opportunities for you! If you want to wait until the fall, the NED will again have numerous short courses and webinars available beginning the end of August. The schedule will be released mid-July.

I hope you will be intentional about finding some time for reflection in the short term and have smooth endings to your spring semesters.

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Student Success and Planning Tools Available to All Minnesota State Students and Their Advisors

Academic Technology Tips | By Cassandra Levesque and Kelly Ponto Watrin, Student Success and Planning Technology Support Analysts

You may have heard about Minnesota State Guided Learning Pathways – a student-centered framework for Equity 2030 that outlines effective practices in academic and student support program design and delivery to effectively engage and support each student from their initial connection with our faculty and staff through their educational journey to attainment. It is based on the premise that students are more likely to complete a degree or credential if they:

• choose a program early on;
• have an academic plan that provides a roadmap of courses needed to complete their degree; and
• receive the support and guidance they need to persist.

You may have wondered, “Is there a tool that students can use to create their academic plan with a roadmap of courses needed to complete their degree?”

Yes, there is – Minnesota State Student Planner!

Minnesota State Student Planner

Minnesota State Student Planner is a dynamic academic planning tool that uses the most up-to-date information available, including transfer and in-progress courses, from the student record system and can be accessed on any device connected to the internet. Students and their advisors access custom degree audits, plans, and schedules to assist with planning to reach their academic goals:

• Degree Audit – Track your progress toward graduation! 
• Graduation Planner – Stay on your path and graduate on time!
• Schedule Builder – Create your optimized schedule! 

Degree Audit at a Glance (PDF)

Faculty approved academic programs are encoded by staff at each institution into uAchieve Degree Audit which is used for verification of award completion. uAchieve is a CollegeSource software product and is currently implemented at all Minnesota State colleges and universities.

uAchieve Degree Audit is a self-directed, automated electronic tool for tracking a student’s progress toward completing an academic program (degree, diploma, or certificate). uAchieve includes a degree audit system and an automated transfer evaluation system that produces screen, print, and web degree audits and transfer evaluation reports. uAchieve Degree Audit is used to verify that graduation requirements have been met.

Students access their degree audit by logging into their eServices and selecting Degree Audit under the Academic Records category. How to log into Minnesota State Student Planner. Once logged in, students can produce a degree audit for their declared program How to Read Your Degree Audit or a “what-if” degree audit: How to Run Your Degree Audit and a “What-If” Degree Audit. “What-if” degree audits allow students to determine their progress toward a program that they may not have officially declared.

Students are encouraged to check their audit at least 3 times each term and before they apply for graduation.

1. Before they register for classes to see which courses they still need.
2. After they register for classes to check that the courses they registered for meet their program requirements.
3. After their grades are posted to make sure the grades are correct and meet their requirements.

Courses from a Degree Audit can be added to a plan in Graduation Planner. 

Graduation Planner at a Glance (PDF)

Students and advisors can create personalized plans for declared program and/or “what-if” program degree audits. It only takes a few steps to create a term-by-term plan that helps a student stay on track to complete all program requirements:

• Use drag and drop functionality to create and edit plans. 
• Allows students and advisors to create a guided path to graduation. 
• Students and advisors have access to the same information in the same application. 
• Planned courses are verified against the degree audit to ensure they meet program requirements and can reduce unintended course repeats. 

Courses from a Preferred Plan can be pushed directly into Schedule Builder. 

Schedule Builder at a Glance (PDF)

Students and advisors can manually create schedules or allow the algorithm to generate combinations based on your unique needs and preferences. The Schedule Builder uses courses pushed from a Preferred Plan in Graduation Planner or added manually to create multiple possible schedules. Preference selections include:

• Block out times for work, sports, and other commitments.
• Lock in specific courses and times.
• View course information including seat availability.
• Spread classes out or cluster them in the fewest number of days possible.
• Mark pairs of courses as mutually exclusive (Lit A OR Lit B) or as must be taken together (Lecture A AND Lab A).

Easily complete registration by adding the Course ID numbers from your schedule to Student eServices Courses & Registration in Search for a Course or by using Quick Add for multiple courses.

Additional Resources

• Resources for employees: Minnesota State Student Planner on ASA Connect.
• Resources for students: Minnesota State Student Planner at MinnState.edu/planner.

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Register for the NED Teaching and Learning Conference

Did You Know? | By Megan Babel, ASA Communications Coordinator

New dates! September 26-27, 2024. Registration is now available for the 2024 Network for Educational Development (NED) Teaching and Learning Conference, held in person and online.

Minnesota State educators have asked for more opportunities to collaborate and share best teaching and learning practices across our colleges and universities – and that’s what the NED is all about!

The 2024 NED Teaching and Learning Conference is an opportunity to gain inspiration, connect with your peers, reflect with others, and enhance your teaching and learning strategies and techniques. The conference will be both in-person and online and will have robust sessions led by your colleagues from across the state.

A Pre-Conference Workshop is also available for those attending in-person. The Pre-Conference Workshop will provide participants with an overview of the Racial Equity Advocates faculty development program that Minnesota State University, Mankato has initiated.

The review committee was delighted with the quantity and quality of session proposals. Those who submitted conference proposals will be notified of their proposal status later this week. Session abstracts will be available June 1 and a final agenda will be made available by August 1.

Register and Learn More

Find all conference details on the NED Teaching and Learning Conference page.

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