NTU’s Student Engagement Team win Collaborative Award for Teaching
A team at Nottingham Trent University, which is using technology to help students succeed in their studies has won a prestigious Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence (CATE) 2019 from Advance HE.
The Student Engagement Team led by Ed Foster is based in NTU’s Centre for Student and Community Engagement (CenSCE).
The team has been recognised for its work with students, academics and professional services to deliver the NTU Student Dashboard. This dashboard uses various indicators, such as use of library facilities, to create a digital footprint showing how students are engaging with their studies. This enables constructive conversations between students and staff making it more likely any concerns are addressed promptly.
Developing the Dashboard has been a significant challenge from both an educational and technological perspective and NTU’s expertise in this growing field of learning analytics is now widely recognised across the international higher education sector. The Dashboard has been developed with the technology partner Solutionpath, and has been shaped by the views of students and staff.
Professor Eunice Simmons, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Academic and Student Affairs, said; “There is no doubt that NTU’s award-winning Student Dashboard is changing the learning and teaching landscape. Our focus on engagement, not demographics or risk of failure, and the sharing of data between students and staff has created a positive, nuanced application of technology to support learning.”
The team’s detailed research continues to show that there is a strong correlation between engagement measured in the Dashboard and student success and those students who use the Dashboard more frequently are more likely to be successful in their studies. Furthermore, alerts raised by the system are very strong indicators that a student may be considering leaving their course. Since the launch in 2014, usage has been fantastic with student log-ins exceeding 1.7 million. The team continues to work to make the resource as useful as possible for students and for staff, particularly personal tutors. The major priority for the coming year is ensuring that all tutors fully utilise the Dashboard and make best use of it with their personal tutees.