March 1, 2013

Keep students on track with “electronic nudges”

Tracey Haynie, Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at UW Tacoma, is putting students’ mobile devices to work for a good cause.

To help her online pre-calculus and introductory statistics classes stay on track and motivated, she piloted a tool called Persistence Plus, which gives students electronic ‘nudges’ via their mobile device — about due dates, upcoming quizzes and exams, and motivational text messages.

What she has learned

Access: “With a growing number of military personnel and older students returning to earn a degree, we felt it was critical to offer them a variety of options to fit their schedules and lifestyles.”

Advice: “Just try it! It doesn’t have to be permanent, and if you try it and decide your students don’t benefit from it, then you can scratch it.”

Reaction from her students: “I have only heard positive feedback from students. Many students said they found the reminders about due dates to be extremely helpful, and the other thing they specifically mentioned loving were the motivational texts. It gave them a little boost to study harder, or go find a study group to meet with.”

Learn more

This article was originally published on March 2013 as part of a UW Provost report on trends and issues in public higher education. Read the Educause Review online article about the pilot, Analytics, Nudges, and Learner Persistence.