Events

CDU Melbourne staff enhance knowledge of student support tools

Charles Darwin University (CDU) Melbourne staff members had the opportunity to attend a professional development workshop with CDU Higher Education and Training Development Team Leader Alison Reedy, who visited the CDU Melbourne campus last week.

Alison conducted an interactive professional development workshop specifically for CDU Melbourne staff to learn how to use Learnline analytics tools, which may help staff monitor the progress of their students’ performance and attendance for each unit and course.

Learnline, which is used by CDU staff and students, is an online learning system that consists of Blackboard Learn, the learning management system and other platforms that connect students, staff and support online learning.

Alison said the tools would be able to assist staff to target those students who are most at risk, and will ultimately aid student engagement and retention across the university.

“What we want to know is how you identify your students being at risk in your class and how does that contribute to attrition,” Alison told staff.

“We do have students that are failing and sometimes we don’t know. What we will look at is the analytics tools that might help staff identify what’s going on and to think about how then you can intervene and support students.

“The analytics data doesn’t give answers but more helps you to ask questions you might want to investigate further,” she said.

Alison went on to show staff how to access certain tools through Learnline such as the unit management area, performance dashboard and the unit analytics report for students.

“The performance dashboard is pretty much a static report that lets you see things like when students last accessed an activity. The retention centre provides four alerts that you can customise, which allows you to set parameters that you think might be students at risk so you can monitor students,” Alison said.

“The unit analytics report is exciting as it brings together data from the Learnline site with data from the student management system, like the course, students’ GPA, and geographic information. You get some really powerful reports.”

The workshop was well-received by CDU Melbourne staff who are now ready to utlise the tools to help the most at risk students.