Dear Colleagues,

This semester’s progress report campaign starts today and runs through Sunday, March 24. I appreciate the time you take on these; the reports are important to student success as they help us identify cross-course patterns and develop more specific interventions. Remember, our students’ success is our success.

Some quick notes:     

Please submit reports as soon as possible. In addition, discuss progress reports with your students and highlight the path to success in your course as appropriate. If you have a course with large enrollments, please focus on students who need additional support. 

Instructors will be receiving emails soon with course-specific links. Additional context is available below and at uwm.edu/navigate. For support or technical questions contact navigate-support@uwm.edu. Thank you for your help with this important initiative.

With appreciation,

Andrew P. Daire, PhD
Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs

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Student-facing language suitable for Posting on Canvas and Syllabus 

UWM uses Navigate, a powerful tool dedicated to student success. There are numerous benefits to you as a student to engage with the platform and mobile application, including learning about academic resources, setting up study groups in your courses, making appointments with your academic advisor, getting reminders on important dates, and much more. 

In addition, Navigate allows instructors to send Progress Reports to students throughout the term, allowing for updates on your academic progress in a course in addition to your grade. Certain reports may encourage academic advisors or other support staff to provide outreach to you as well. You can log into the platform here: https://uwm.guide.eab.com/ or by finding the Navigate link under the Current Students tab on the UWM home page. Tutorials and more information on how you can use Navigate and the app can be found on UWM's Navigate website.
    

Instructions for Students     

To view the progress reports submitted by your instructors,     

For Instructors: How Progress Reports Work     

Explaining. Please post the above message to Canvas and your syllabus and talk to your students about what Progress Reports are and what they do. Let them know when they might expect them from you, and how they can access and read them.  

Submitting. Instructors can submit a progress report or alert for a student at any time by selecting Navigate on the Faculty/Staff tab of the UWM homepage (click for a video tutorial OR a PDF step-by-step guide). To participate in the campaign, please follow the link in the invitation email you received. When writing the reports, please provide a level of detail that will be helpful to students, advisors, success coaches, and the Student Success Center.     

Routing. Progress report reasons that reinforce positive course performance are received by students directly. When someone submits a progress report on a student who is struggling academically, that student and their advisor both receive a notification from Navigate. When logged in to Navigate, the student and the advisor will both see the “Reason” you selected (e.g., “Missing Work”) and any explanation you provided. In addition, if you chose to refer the student to a resource, that office will reach out to the student. This chart shows how such progress reports are routed: 

Instructors and others may also submit an “Alert,” which leads the assigned office to create a case and reach out to the student:

Reaching Out. The advisors in your school or college may be contacting students who receive progress reports but that outreach varies by school or college.      

Reaching out to students can be a significant challenge. Advisors may attempt to call, text, or email students. Many will make multiple attempts to reach students, but they won’t always be successful. The Student Success Center will also reach out to all first-year students who receive a negative progress report.     

It’s also critical that instructors continue, when possible, to reach out to students as well. Progress reports are just one additional tool to aid student success and prompt conversations with students, and when they work they can work very well. But the course instructors are still the most critical partner in helping students succeed. 

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