Faculty needed for Course Signals program

MCC has been working in partnership with SunGard Higher Education to test a software program, Course Signals, that pulls together data from Blackboard grade books and MetroSoft to help predict early in the semester which students are at highest risk for getting a D, F or W.

Faculty will be able to run Course Signals anytime throughout the semester, which will give them additional opportunities to recommend actions to students that will improve performance. When run, the software will send one of three signals (green, yellow or red) to the student’s Blackboard home page to let them know how they are actually doing in class.

“The signals used are stoplight signals,” said Susan Wilson, director of student development. “If a student is doing really well, it’s green; not doing so well, it’s yellow; and if a student is at high risk of trouble in the course, they receive a red signal.”

The program also allows for faculty to send an email to the students that will give information and suggest resources for the student to utilize. Messaging can include a suggestion of certain material review, office hours of the faculty or a suggestion to visit the tutoring center, etc. The idea is to let students know their status early enough in the semester for them to be able to make changes and improve their grade.

Last spring, MCC was asked to participate as a development partner to work hand-in-hand with SunGard to see what enhancements need to be made to the product and to do testing to new versions as they become available. Because of this partnership, MCC will be able to test the software in a live setting from January – June at no cost to the college. At the end of the spring semester, MCC will complete an assessment plan to determine if we will enter into a five year contract at a significant discount.

“Course Signals will be evaluated to see if it does the things it is supposed to do,” Wilson said. “Does the software work; do we think it’s valuable for our students and faculty? We want the faculty perspective on how much time it takes and if they think it is a good way of communicating with students.”

Most importantly, are students making changes based on the signals and putting more effort into class? Students in the test program will be assessed as well. “We want to know if the students feel it is valuable and if they responded positively to the program,” added Wilson.

Finally, data from the class will be measured against other classes to see if there are fewer D’s, F’s and W’s in comparable classes. MCC’s comprehensive assessment will look to see if students moved from a red to a yellow, and a yellow to green.

MCC is looking for faculty to use this software in the spring semester. Faculty members interested in participating should contact Deanna Poudel at 604.4507 or Susan Wilson at 604.1070.