Primary Resources: Interviews with current ECT master student and ECT program director Maaike Bouwmeester. Given the COVID-19 situation, all interviews and communication were conducted through Slack, Zoom, and emails.
Research Methods: Since this project starts after the Spring ECT New Student Orientation, so observation of it is not an option to investigate potential issues that need to be addressed. Thereby, the research methods for this project focus on interviews with students or faculties who have attended the orientation before. For the interview part, we will focus on finding out which part of the orientation helped the student who attended, and what it didn’t offer that those students wished for.
Information we are looking for from our interviewees:
For ECT students:
What information ECT students are looking for or expecting from their orientation before they attend the orientation?
What do ECT students expect to gain from their studying journeys at NYU?
What are the strengths and interests of ECT students?
For ECT program director Maaike Bouwmeester:
To learn her thoughts and opinions on, including but not limited to, the ultimate goal of the orientation, which part of the orientation should remain but what should be improved, and what is the most essential part of the orientation.
Interview questions for ECT students :
Where are you based this semester?
Did you attend the program orientation? If no, can you explain why?
If yes, what was the orientation experience like?
What did you gain from that experience?
Did it help you to build some connections with your peers and ECT faculty members?
Was there anything you wish that happened differently during the orientation?
How is your studying experience in ECT so far?
What kind of support network do you feel ECT has?
Is there any kind of support that’s missing from the orientation?
What skill do you wish to gain and develop through the program?
Do you feel the community offers you enough support for that? How?
What else do you expect from the ECT community?
Interview questions for program director Maaike Bouwmeester:
What is the most challenging part for you to design the orientation?
In your opinion, which part of the orientation is the most essential which should not be changed?
In your opinion, which part of the orientation needs/can be improved or changed?
In the past, was there any part of the orientation you have designed that didn't work out as you expected? Do you know why?
Was there any follow-up process with students after the orientation?
Shall we design for an online orientation or an in-person one?
Boud, D., Cohen, R., & Sampson, J. (2016). Peer learning in higher education: Learning from and with each other. Place of publication not identified: Routledge.
Breed, C. (2019, September 25). How to create a collaborative learning environment [Web log post]. Retrieved March 8, 2021, from https://blog.kamiapp.com/how-to-create-a-collaborative-learning-environment/
Mintz, S. (2019, May 28). Strategies for Improving Student Success: Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved March 8, 2021, from https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-gamma/strategies-improving-student-success
Waite, B. C., Waite, C., Chelsea WaiteChelsea is a research fellow at the Institute, & Chelsea is a research fellow at the Institute. (2020, December 03). Online peer-learning: A growing trend sees 2 different approaches. Retrieved from https://www.christenseninstitute.org/blog/online-peer-learning-a-growing-trend-sees-two-different-approaches/
Interview with students in the program, ask them about how they define a well-supportive learning environment, what is missing, and what should be added.
Waite, B. C., Waite, C., Chelsea WaiteChelsea is a research fellow at the Institute, & Chelsea is a research fellow at the Institute. (2020, December 03). Online peer-learning: A growing trend sees 2 different approaches. Retrieved from https://www.christenseninstitute.org/blog/online-peer-learning-a-growing-trend-sees-two-different-approaches/
Interview with students who are in the program. Ask their experiences with peer learning in the program so far, and anything they like, or anything they wish can be better improved.
Boud, D., Cohen, R., & Sampson, J. (2016). Peer learning in higher education: Learning from and with each other. Place of publication not identified: Routledge.
Breed, C. (2019, September 25). How to create a collaborative learning environment [Web log post]. Retrieved March 8, 2021, from https://blog.kamiapp.com/how-to-create-a-collaborative-learning-environment/
Interview with students who have attended the orientation, ask them if the event successfully clarified what resources the program offers, and what their expectations are after finishing the program.
Mintz, S. (2019, May 28). Strategies for Improving Student Success: Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved March 8, 2021, from https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-gamma/strategies-improving-student-success
The goal of the revised orientation is to build a community that can support ECT students with a collaborative learning experience at NYU. We have done four Zoom interviews with current ECT students. Some of them started their study before COVID-19 and attended in-person the orientation. The rest neither didn’t attend the orientation nor only attended the online version. Findings from both primary and secondary resources are summarized as follows:
Findings on past orientations:
a. In-person Orientation:
It contains a lot of information in a very short period of time, normally half of the day. That makes all the sections of the information can only be introduced briefly and felt very rushed to finish.
Seems like there weren’t any materials such as ppt or full script of the event, it is hard to recall after a while of the event.
The event only includes a very short section of casual talking or meeting with other students or faculties, which should be the crucial part of the event. Many of the faculties were only introduced once with very brief information, it is hard to know more about people in the event, and no follow-up sections to hang with them.
b. Online Orientation:
The email about the orientation should be more eye-catching, otherwise hard for the people to notice if they check the email less frequently.
Findings on what a well-supported learning environment mean for ECT students:
For part-time students, students who have a job during the daytime, and students in different time zones other than GMT-4, it would be better if some of the social events or talks can be hosted at night. Take coffee chat for example, instead of only hosting it every Thursday morning, offering more time slots like Friday night, would accommodate and engage more ECT students.
Students can receive prompt feedbacks from professors or knowledgeable students, like a quick response from Slack or via emails.
Key takeaways from interview with ECT program director Maaike Bouwmeester:
One of the most essential goals of ECT orientation is to offer students space and chances to meet their peers and faculties in the program and then build connections that would be beneficial to them in the future.
The most challenging part of the orientation is to figure out the right and feasible balance between what is helpful BEFORE starting the program and what is better to left AFTER the program starts
There are not enough follow-up or feedback circles that are available to students and faculties after the orientation.
Conclusions for the area of improvement:
More focus should be placed on curating the right, accurate and concrete information to present during the orientation. Offering options for students to choose what area of information they want to hear from the orientation before the orientation and what they can discover by themselves later through guidance after the program could engage students more in the orientation.
More time should be offered during the orientation to let students have chances to meet their peers and faculties, have conversations, and build connections in order to better support their future studies in the program.
More follow-up sections or check-ins for students should be designed to gain more information or sources to better understand the needs of students and how they maintain their relationships with ECT community members after the orientation.
More considerations on the varieties of student groups, like having more time slots for social events that consider the different time schedules or time differences that are faced by both part-time and full-time students as well as international and local students, etc.