The summer Camp Co-Curriculum series is a great way to get acquainted with important terms and practices related to the Co-Curricular Paths tool while also hearing directly from a variety of campuses about their method. Each episode is less than 40 minutes long including an instructional section as well as a campus example and story. After watching this series, you'll be ready to head to training and build your Path in Engage!
Creating a Vision for Your Path
In this episode, we'll learn more about the first steps for designing a Path: creating a framework and organizational design for the path. We review important terms (domain, item group, item) and discuss common organizational models for paths while considering relevant implications within the practice of curriculum design. The episode features two special guest stars from Siena College. Siena designed their Journey to Success path as a campus-wide experience targeted to enroll first-year students. The path is closely modeled after the campus' institution mission and values and was designed with the input of committee members across campus. You can also find a PDF of this slide deck at the bottom of the article.
Mapping Activities to Your Path
In this episode, we focus on the process of identifying activities (events, experiences, and organizations) eligible to advance credit in the path and how much credit they should advance. Our special guest from Georgia State University discusses how he determined what items belonged in their leadership path and how best to organize them within the structure, organized around the Social Change Model. We review considerations for when to create an item by event category vs. event name as well as when to choose a self-report item type vs. a self-reported experience item type. Tune into explore different models for presenting the same content in your path while transforming the message of the path from the student's perspective.
Launching Your Path
During our third episode, we covered the most often forgotten component of Paths design: what to do once you have launched it! We discussed different incentive strategies for the Path as well as best practices for tracking progress and assessing the Path itself after launch. Rowan University's William G. Rohrer College of Business presented on strategies they utilize with their path to keep students engaged after launch. Since their path aligns with a for-credit academic course, students are incentivized to complete the program as it connects to 5 percentage points within their grade for the course. Rowan also checks in with students throughout the semester to encourage further participation and has built relationships with faculty allowing them to also appear in class briefly twice a semester to provide further guidance.
The Big Picture (2018 Campus Labs Awards "Trailblazer" Winner American International College)
As the grand finale to our series, 2018 Campus Labs Awards "Trailblazer" winner American International College presented on their path creation process from start to finish for their campus-wide co-curricular path. Our guest discussed strategies for launching a path of this scale as well as special considerations to ensure the sustainability and inclusivity of the path to all participants. This webinar is a must-see for any campus considering a campus-wide scale co-curricular pathway incorporating academic as well as co-curricular features. Although this campus implemented Engage with the goal of implementing their path, they waited a full year focusing on getting basic organizational and management components into the system before beginning the path building process. Visit our Campus Labs Awards page for more details on what made this campus so successful.