Escalating multi-channel contact immediately upon missed assessment, starting with SMS¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

The department contacted students by SMS immediately upon missing any continuous assessment component, rather than waiting until the end of the first semester as previously. Contact methods escalated in severity: personal face-to-face conversations, SMS, email via Moodle, and finally personal letters copied to the Adviser of Studies. SMS "served to get students back on track quickly" during the early transition period, and email became the primary method by mid-semester.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Students volunteering mobile telephone numbers; attendance data from barcode scanners to detect missed tasks promptly

Constraints¶

• Some students failed to respond to repeated contact attempts across all channels

Target Learners¶

• first-year undergraduate physics students transitioning from secondary education

Target Learning Goals¶

• timely submission of continuous assessment and sustained engagement

Related Strategies¶

• Mobile Communication for Family Engagement
• Contacts Between Students And Faculty
• Communicate Quickly and Easily Through Mobile Apps
• Text Chats in Instruction

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• MM Casey and S McVitie. (2009). Academic performance & student engagement in level 1 physics undergraduates. https://arxiv.org/abs/0911.2733