With uncertainty around what will be possible for teaching when we resume in October one thing that is critical, to ensure students not only turn up, but are also ready for study, is the induction process. This year, to really help and support students, induction not only needs to be extended to reach out to students as soon as possible but also continue beyond the first week or two to ensure they are supported and settle in succesfully.
One of the critical things will be building a relationship with students so they are:
- Reassured that whatever issues may arise the Uni is there to help and support them
- They have a sense of belonging both with staff and their peers to help bolster them in these uncertain times.
Without building a bridge into study we know a lot of students will elect to defer. Also, students who arrive uncertain about what to expect will be far more likely to withdraw in the early stages. In the School of Creative Technologies we are building a website for pre-induction that will help with these aspects:
- Clarity over what to expect when they arrive
- This includes mini (simple) demos of some of the tools they may be using that they are unused to (like video conferencing)
- A chance to connect with the staff that will teach them and their course leader
- The opportunity to start connecting with the people that will become their fellow classmates.
- Outline the expected timeline of events and opportunities before they arrive so they know what to expect.
The principles for this are:
- clear and concise – not to overload them with information. they will be uncertain and so simple messaging will help alleviate that.
- welcoming, and personal, so ensuring the styling of the site and the content is informal and engaging.
- as it gets nearer to start time the focus will move from generic School information to more specific course content to start focusing them on the studies ahead.
One of the challenges of this is not ‘re-inventing the wheel’ by creating a whole lot of new resources, but equally, it should be recognised that normal resources may not be fit for purpose here. To re-iterate – the key is clear and concise.
There is also a need for absolute consistency across messaging, again to reduce uncertainty – it is always very easy for a message to get slightly mutated over time or between different people so it is probably woirth setting up a shared space for specific info they gets re-used to keep these critical messages the same.
the website is cuurently a work on progress but can be seen here: