2:26 p.m.
FYI, this is an email I sent out to all faculty concerning options for contacting at-risk
students through EARN. Please remember to check your students' EARN flags when you
meet with them, especially those students who have three or more flags raised. To access
EARN:
1. Log into Blackboard.
2. Click on the EARN link under the Tools Menu.
3. Click on the My Students link under the Students tab. You will see an
alphabetized list of students in your caseload who are registered for class this semester.
You can scroll down this list and click on the link beside a student, then click on
Tracking to see if the student has any active flags (click the radio button beside
Active).
4. Next to the My Students tab is a tab called Tracking. Click on this tab, and
make sure Assigned Advisor (not Academic Advisor) is selected under Connection, to see a
list of your students who have flags. If students with flags that have already been
resolved are showing, click on Edit Filters and select Status Active under Tracking
Items.
At this time in the semester you should see only a handful of students with active flags,
if you see any at all, but that number will increase dramatically by the end of the fourth
week of the semester, when faculty fill out Progress Surveys, set up their Blackboard
gradebooks to automatically raise flags on students, and the 45 and 90 hour holds are
added in Banner. The most critical flags to address with students are Three Active Flags,
In Danger of Failing, and Low Midterm Grade.
As you know, Amanda is out on maternity leave for the next three months, so I'll do my
best to answer questions about EARN, and I'll talk with Dainon about the possibility
of offering some kind of training on EARN if advisors voice a need for it. Please send
EARN questions to EARN(a)utsa.edu.
Jimmy
James R. Adair, Ph.D.
Associate Director of Advising Technology
Lecturer II, Department of Philosophy & Classics
One UTSA Circle
San Antonio, TX 78255
210-458-6216
From: EARN
Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2015 3:00 PM
To: All Faculty <allfaculty(a)utsa.edu>
Subject: EARN: Options for Contacting At-Risk Students for Fall 2015
For two years UTSA has been using EARN: the Early Alert Retention Network to contact
students at risk of poor academic performance throughout the semester, and especially
within the first few weeks, while they still have time to improve their focus and modify
their learning strategies. This Fall we again encourage all faculty to use EARN to
identify and contact students early in the semester with warnings (flags) about potential
academic failure or encouragement (kudos) for success in the classroom. Based on faculty
feedback from previous semesters, we have devised a new, automated way of raising flags on
students who have low course averages at the end of the fourth week of the semester by
simply creating a column in the Blackboard gradebook. Faculty now have three options for
contacting students through EARN:
1. By entering Blackboard, clicking on the EARN link under the Tools menu, and
selecting My Students under the Students menu, instructors can raise one of six flags for
poor academic performance or one of five kudos for good academic performance. By using
the "Zoom In" feature, student grades are accessible in EARN, and faculty do not
have to go back and forth between EARN and their Blackboard gradebook. Flags raised in
this way may be raised at any time. As of this morning 641 active flags have already been
raised by faculty. For more detailed information on this option, look at these two links:
http://www.utsa.edu/advise/EARN/EARN%20How%20To%20-Brochure_Student_Succe... (see page
2, under EARN) and http://www.utsa.edu/advise/EARN/ZoomInPDF.pdf.
2. At the end of the fourth week of class (Friday, Sep 11), all faculty will receive
an email containing a link to an EARN Progress Survey for each of their classes. The
Progress Survey will allow instructors to see a list of students in each of their classes,
giving them the option of raising one or more flags (from a list of three possibilities)
or of sending a "Keep Up the Good Work" kudo for each student. For more
information on Progress Surveys, see
http://www.utsa.edu/advise/EARN/EARN%20How%20To%20-Brochure_Student_Succe... (page 2,
Completing the Progress Survey).
3. The newest EARN option available to faculty allows them to create a column in
their Blackboard gradebook called EARNGRADE, which will contain students' running
average in the course on a hundred point scale. This column may be a calculated column,
which contains a weighted average of other selected gradebook columns, or a column in
which the instructor manually enters grades. Instructors who choose this option should
set the column as their External Grade Column in Blackboard. EARN will automatically read
the EARNGRADE column directly from an instructor's Blackboard gradebook, obviating the
need for the instructor to click on the EARN link in Blackboard at all. Detailed
instructions for setting up the EARNGRADE column may be found here:
http://www.utsa.edu/advise/EARN/SetUpBlackboardtoReportGradesToEARN.pdf. Faculty who
choose this option must have their EARNGRADE column created, filled with grades, and set
as the External Grade Column by Thursday, Sep 10. Students in these courses with a grade
less than 70 in the EARNGRADE column will have a flag raised.
Using EARN is optional for faculty members, and if you have other effective ways of
communicating with your students in a timely fashion, feel free to continue using them.
Many faculty, however, have found EARN to be a helpful tool for promoting student success
at UTSA, so we encourage you to use one or more of the options above to communicate with
your students. Effective, early communication with students about their performance in
class-both positive and negative-can improve their chances of success and in turn improve
the graduation rate of the entire university. Thank you for your commitment to helping
students succeed!
For more information on EARN, please visit our website at http://utsa.edu/EARN. Please
send any questions to EARN@utsa.edu<mailto:EARN@utsa.edu>.
James R. Adair, Ph.D.
Associate Director of Advising Technology
Lecturer II, Department of Philosophy & Classics
One UTSA Circle
San Antonio, TX 78255
210-458-6216