VPAA: Tools of Engagement--the Success of a Team

Success, whether in education or in life, is something that happens because people work together. Rarely do the best athletes achieve their goals without coaches, without families that believe in them and actively support them.

The same is true of students and of career professionals. Many of you have heard me express again and again my passion for improving our student retention practices at Union Institute & University—specifically at the undergraduate level. Our enrollment teams are truly excellent in recruiting a diverse student population—many of them returning adult learners.

What is exciting is that this is one of the areas where UI&U shines: we excel in being a degree-completion institution for undergraduate adult learners and career professionals. Our data from self-studies consistently indicates that this is where we win. Union empowers individuals to become employable, socially responsible contributors to their surrounding communities.

I want to continue ensuring that we serve those undergraduate, adult learners well. According to the Association of American Colleges and Universities, returning, undergraduate adult learners often have different expectations of their class experiences: 

1. Many adult learners see a university course as a place to gain skills that will directly benefit them in their personal and professional capacities;
2. They desire task-based approaches to learning with clearly defined outcomes—“What can I do as a result of completing this assignment / this course?”
3. They see their courses as places to engage with others and to share and hear professional and personal experiences that will benefit the group as a whole.

The Chronicle of Higher Education (available for free through the UI&U Library!) consistently recognizes the needs of returning adult learners and advocates new strategies for partnering with those students to ensure their success.

The Department of Education advocates that one of the ways main ways we can team up to support returning professionals is through technology. Many of you know that I am excited about promoting technological advancement and virtual, online tools at Union. The main reasons for this are:

1. Computer literacy is essential for competitive employability. The ability to use a computer and access the tools of the World Wide Web is no longer optional for our students. They must have proficient computer skills to be competitive in today’s job market.
2. Online, virtual learning allows busy, working adults to engage and network with other professionals and allows them to share work-related and personal experiences that benefits the larger group. This is the genius of the “flipped classroom” model, promoted by Jim Hicks and Jonathan Eskridge in the Center for Teaching and Learning. In this model, the professor’s strength shines greatest when he or she facilitates an active learning community—a space where students learn from and are supported by each other. They become their own support network. 

Technology is never an end unto itself. Technology provides tools for engaging our students and for helping them become successful. And their success is our success.

I want to highlight two specific examples of technological teaching tools that are immediately applicable for our students.

1.  Susan Whitehead, from the UI&U Library, developed a unique, online puzzle to help Union students capitalize on the online research resources available to them and to help them connect and interact with the library staff. Susan’s “treasure hunt” tool can easily be implemented as a class exercise and is a perfect example of leveraging technology as a tool for interaction and engagement. You can read more about the puzzle at the Union Library’s blogsite! 
2. Turnitin is an amazing automatic grading-feedback tool and is available for faculty use. We strongly encourage instructors to use Turnitin to check student papers for plagiarism as well as grammatical / writing feedback. Contact the IT Help Desk to request an account!

Student use of Turnitin is NOT currently available. It will be available in the future within CampusWeb, but we are waiting for Jenzabar to enable this integration.

Go to the Turnitin website or watch a short video to see more about how Turnitin works.

Union does well targeting the needs of undergraduate, returning adult learners and career professionals. Let us take advantage of the technological resources we have to engage our students and to interact and team up with them for their academic and professional success.

The research shows that “Adult learners who experience academic success in higher education tend to gain economic and personal benefits, which most likely provide social, political, and economic benefits for the broader society” (AACU).

When our students succeed, all of us win.