Office of Student Engagement: Best Practices for Fostering Student Success

Student engagement is a critical component of academic success and overall student well-being. Colleges and universities are increasingly focused on creating environments that foster meaningful connections between students, faculty, and the institution. This article explores best practices in student engagement, drawing upon successful strategies and initiatives implemented across various institutions. It will cover strategies for improving student engagement in higher education that combines technological innovation with authentic human connection.

Understanding Student Engagement

Effective student engagement in higher education operates across three interconnected dimensions: cognitive, emotional, and behavioral. Cognitive engagement involves a shift from rote memorization toward meaningful understanding and application of knowledge. Emotional engagement encompasses students' feelings of belonging, value, and investment in their educational journey. Behavioral engagement includes active participation in the learning process and campus life.

Core Policies for Student Organizations

Understanding the core policies that govern student organizations is essential for effective engagement. This includes knowledge of definitions, consequences, and the policies themselves. Key areas covered include responsibility, hazing, alcohol, and financial matters.

Operational Aspects of Student Organizations

Navigating the operational aspects of student organizations is crucial for their smooth functioning. This involves understanding the annual registration process, implementing effective leadership management strategies, and leveraging platforms like CardinalEngage to their fullest potential.

Non-Student Involvement

Student organizations often collaborate with non-student advisors, instructors, coaches, and community members. Understanding the roles and best practices for these partnerships is vital for effective collaboration and support.

Working with Minors

When student organizations create experiences for youth, understanding the guidelines for working with minors is essential to ensure safety and compliance.

Definitions

Student Organization: All recognized student organizations including voluntary student organizations (including club sports teams), fraternities, and sororities.
Student Leader: A student with a formal position of responsibility to make decisions or plan events on behalf of the organization. This position may be elected or appointed.

Strategies for Enhancing Student Engagement

Visible Leading and Faculty Development

Principals and educational leaders play a crucial role in fostering student engagement. By working closely with teachers, providing frequent and effective feedback, and modeling student engagement strategies during faculty professional development sessions, leaders can create a culture of continuous improvement. Visible leading is about helping teachers view learning from their students’ perspective. It offers an enhanced role for teachers as they become evaluators of their own teaching.

Embrace Change and Expand Your Network

Learning is inherently social. By embracing change and modeling student engagement strategies, faculty can create a more dynamic and engaging learning environment. Expanding professional networks and collaborating with other instructional leaders can provide valuable resources, supports, and methods for assessing impact on the school.

Observe Collaboratively

Collaborative observations among principals and instructional leaders can enhance skills and inter-rater reliability. By observing classes, debriefing, and discussing takeaways, educators can develop a shared understanding of effective teaching strategies and cultivate their capacity to use these strategies within their schools.

The SURN Indicators of Student Engagement Tool

The SURN Indicators of the Student Engagement tool identifies 12 high-yield learning strategies, as well as five lower-yield strategies commonly seen in classrooms.

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Leveraging Technology for Engagement

Technology plays a significant role in enhancing student engagement. Effective SMS strategies can create genuine two-way conversations, boosting action rates and transforming passive content consumption into dynamic educational experiences. Data analytics can help institutions understand student behavior patterns and identify signs of disengagement before problems become critical.

Personalized Support and Interventions

Success in student engagement requires combining data insights with human connection. Personalized support and interventions that address individual circumstances are essential. Creating peer connections and integrating academic and support services into a single, user-friendly experience can greatly enhance student success.

Streamlined Communication and Navigation

Institutions should focus on streamlining navigation and creating personalized learning pathways that cater to students' schedules, family responsibilities, and varying levels of technological comfort. Personalized, scalable interventions can address individual needs without sacrificing other important commitments.

Data-Driven Insights and Feedback

Engagement strategies should be based on data-driven insights and student feedback. Regular assessments of engagement effectiveness, tailored to different student populations, can inform adjustments to strategies and approaches.

Early Intervention and Prevention

Proactive engagement strategies are more effective than treating symptoms after problems have already developed. By identifying and addressing potential challenges early on, institutions can provide safety nets that prevent small issues from becoming major obstacles.

Utilizing Existing Platforms

Integrating engagement initiatives into platforms that students already use regularly can increase participation and reduce administrative burden on staff.

Specific Strategies and Initiatives

Raising Awareness about Campus Resources

A campus engagement platform or app should be the go-to resource for students. To increase usership, encourage them to customize their platform, set preferences, interests and other customizable content.

Hosting Key Events

Events serve an educational and social function. Student Life and Affairs programs host big events in the fall, including Orientation and Welcome Week programming. Student Club and Involvement Fairs are also staple events. Having a centralized calendaring system increases the visibility of these events and attendance. Events can be in-person, virtual or hybrid.

Getting Students Involved Early

Research shows that the first 90 days on campus are crucial. Therefore, student affairs professionals need to hold regular touchpoints with students throughout the fall. It is also important to empower students from the start, by helping them set and achieve goals.

Co-Curricular Transcripts (CCT)

Tracking student engagement through co-curricular transcripts (CCT) is effective. The CCT is a comprehensive record of a student’s involvement in experiential learning experiences that take place outside the classroom. CCT data helps students chart their personal journey and measure progress in achieving specific goals. Some student engagement platforms include CCT certification and tracks and checklists features, providing a central space for students and staff to monitor progress.

Gamification

Gamification is a great way to incentivize students to achieve goals. Leaderboards and badge or point systems help measure and reward progress.

Involving the Student's Success Network

The fall semester is also the time to identify students that may be less engaged, and course correct. A best practice is to reach out to students who are not engaging in the first few weeks of the fall semester.

Leveraging Strongest Assets

Among the most effective ways to engage students is to leverage your strongest assets (i.e. your already involved students)! To this end, it is important for Club and Registered Student Organization (RSO) leaders to know how to engage prospective and current members.

Classroom Activities to Enhance Engagement

Addressing Student Fears

Classroom activities should address student fears about learning. Compared to other aspects of college life, the classroom environment is inherently “a riskier one based on intellectual commitment and engagement” which can be intimidating for many students.

Asking Open-Ended Questions

Questions that ask students to justify an opinion or interpret a reading are more likely to elicit responses even from those who do not know exactly how to define a term or derive a formula because there is no risk of “failing” the question.

Background-Knowledge Probes

Ask students what they know about a topic before instruction. Background-knowledge probes are useful because they can help instructors decide what to cover in limited time, ensuring that subsequent meetings of the course will better engage students, and can even generate discussion in the moment.

Ungraded or Credit-Upon-Completion Assignments

Use more ungraded or credit-upon-completion assignments. Short reflections on class material or participation in classroom discussions can easily be turned into credit-upon-completion components of a course.

Collaborative Learning and Teaching

Encourage students to take more active roles in collaborative learning and teaching. Instead of having students solve an example problem on their own, consider asking students to form small groups or try activities such as think-pair-share to work through it.

Peer Review

Build peer review into open-ended assignments. Take time to establish peer review norms and expectations, so that students can trust they will be treated with respect and be more open to feedback.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL)

Use activities that provide students with a diverse range of engagement opportunities. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework which strives to capture the diversity of student learning preferences and is applicable to any field or subject.

Multiple Versions of Activities

Offer multiple versions of activities or assignments. Information is only accessible to students when it engages their cognition, so it is essential to give students both autonomy in choosing how to engage with the material as well as a diversity of methods for them to learn and assess their skills.

Reflection on Learning

Encourage students to reflect upon the learning process. Metacognition is useful for student learning and mastery as well as building and sustaining a motivation to learn.

Emphasizing Course Objectives

Emphasize the importance of course objectives in assignments. Assignments should allow learners to understand or restate the goal of the activity as well as offer relevant examples for how the information gained can be applied which connects to students’ backgrounds and interests.

Leadership & Engagement Action Plan

The University of Iowa's Leadership & Engagement (L&E) department (formerly the Center for Student Involvement & Leadership) underwent a program review in December 2018, resulting in an action plan to enhance its effectiveness. Key recommendations and actions taken include:

Organizational Structure

Recommendation: Review organizational structure, establish a comprehensive sustainable budget, cross-train staff, enhance staff skills and competencies, explore how graduate assistants or student interns can be added to address staff shortfalls, and develop an onboarding process.
Action: A dedicated Director position was hired. Staff were realigned, and the department was shifted to be part of the Dean of Students portfolio. Space needs have been identified and planned for in IMU renovation.

Funding

Recommendation: Develop a comprehensive sustainable budget to ensure long-term planning and funding for programs.
Action: Established funding model that provides a sustainable budget.

Staff Training and Development

Recommendation: Cross-train staff in all areas, enhance staff skills and competencies, and establish an ongoing staff development program.
Action: Cross-training among LE units has commenced, focusing on engagement advising. Staff competencies are being adopted, and a structured staff development process is being implemented.

Graduate Assistants and Interns

Recommendation: Explore how graduate assistants and/or student interns can be added to address staff shortfalls.
Action: A student involvement ambassador program was established. Graduate student practicum experiences have been created within the units.

Onboarding Process

Recommendation: Develop an onboarding process for staff that highlights the division and the department.
Action: A formal onboarding program for staff in each office has been established.

Collaboration and Communication

Recommendation: Consider creating a committee structure in the department to build collaboration, define "student engagement" more clearly, and implement a strategic communication plan for its stakeholders.
Action: Support for collaboration and discussion around focus or priority areas among the offices is being created. A campus-wide definition of student engagement has been created.

Programming and Assessment

Recommendation: Develop a comprehensive programming model that guides decisions for funding and staff priorities, and implement a comprehensive assessment plan to better equip the staff to make data-driven decisions.
Action: An annual audit of programs and services provided within units is ongoing. A comprehensive assessment plan for each office is being implemented.

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