1. Student performance tracking and monitoring for curriculum transformation
Valile Valindawo M. Dwayi
Centre for Learning and Teaching Development
HERDSA: Sydney, Australia
28 June 2017
Managing for Student Academic Success: the Dialectic Relation of Structure and Agency

2. Presentation Synopsis
What curriculum is should serve as the basis for its possible transformation;
Curriculum as both the knowledge structure and also as how the structure is actualised;
HELM role in facilitating knowledge actualisation by means of student performance tracking and monitoring;
Case study, 2015/ /17
Insights from the study:
student performance tracking and monitoring as the interplay of structure and agency; as “knowledge what” and “knowledge that
reflexivity as sustainable HELM practices;

3. Challenges of student retention in RSA (NIEETS)
In one case of HE, and per RSA policy, student success and graduation targets of 74 % & 16% respectively have been exceeded during the last three years, but…..
In one case of the Engineering program in particular,
7% of students did not qualify for semester examinations by June (1st year semester) of 2015/16
19% failed all their courses in June examinations,
25% failed examinations and were also excluded from the engineering programs
Discomforting case of enduring disadvantage, exclusion and marginalisation
#FMF Crisis: “We don’t want to be the students you seem to want us to be!””

4. Student performance profiles, 2015/16
Increase in formal access to HE, but limited opportunities for epistemological access (Morrow, 2002);
Further complicated by constrained access to powerful knowledge; Muller, 2014);
Question,
To what extent, curriculum programs can be transformed for the actual students coming into HE?
how do we know about such a student? How the curriculum thereof might be both relevant and responsive?

5. The Nexus of Equity of Access and the Quality of Success
“Student success does not arise by chance. Nor does substantial improvement in institutional rates of student retention and graduation. It requires intentional, structured, and proactive action that is systematic in nature and coordinated in application” Tinto, Curriculum transformation: It is about, and for student (epistemological access), but it starts with staff (incl HELM) as the critical elements of HE as the ecosystem

6. The contextualised notions about student learning
Mis/framing student learning, Bozalek & Bhoughey (2012)
Notion of preparedness/under-preparedness, Dhunpath et al (2014)
The de-contextualised notion of a learner, Boughey (2014)
The technical/liberal view vs the critical/structured view;
Thus, questioning HELM approaches in dealing with the underlying structures in what is currently managed and led in teaching and learning

7. Epistemological Access and Knowledge/Curriculum
Epistemological access, Morrow (2002)
Affording access to what graduates should learn, know and be able to do
Know what knowledge, as the ‘bedrock’ knowledge to know that knowledge (Mulller, 2014);
know that, as propositional knowledge; and know how, as procedural knowledge
Know that knowledge, about social justice (access to that which students had been denied by systems of oppression)
Know how, the pedagogy of teaching and learning, and how it might be led and managed for social justive
Research project: Who are our students; how do we know about them; how might we have access to the knowledge about the conditions in which their learning takes place? Whose responsibility is it, anyway?

8. Ontological Realism: Stratification, Emergence & Causation
(Bhaskar, 199; Archer,
Domain of the Empirical
HELM perceptions & opinions about student academic performance
Experiences
Domain of the Actual
HELM student performance tracking and monitoring for curriculum transformation
Events & Processes
Domain of the Real: HELM “ultimate concerns” about social justice/social inclusion as the emergent properties of structure, culture and agency, either dormant at this level or emergent at the two levels above
Mechanisms
Key to causality and explanation thereof is the identification of the conditions and the mechanisms at the domain of the real.
Generative as causal, tendential and emergence (Emergence, causation as the interaction of emergent causal powers, and that the theory of emergence describes the type of structural relations that underpins such powers, Elder-Vazz, 2007:)
Generating as the identification, for bringing them to the consciousness

9. Archer’s Theory of Morphogenesis
The morphogenetic sequence for structure, culture and agency
(Source: Archer, 1995, pp )

10. HELM Agency in Social Realist Lenses
Expressed as reflexivity, or internal deliberations, which refers to the ordinary mental capacity to consider oneself in relation to different social contexts. These internal deliberations, as the exercise of agency, take different forms, namely,
Autonomous reflexives are less likely to share their deliberations as they only formulate their own plans about the situation at hand, which then leads to action;
Communicative reflexives refer to those who share their concerns, their deliberations with others in the organization before they can take action about the situation;
Those who operate in a fractured reflexive mode undertake internal conversations that are characterized by distress or anxiety, leading to an absence of purposive action and to making decisions in an essentialist way (Kahn, Everington, Kelm, Reid & Watkins, 2015); and
Co/meta-reflexives focus on social ideals and formulate projects to improve the lives of others (Case, 2013)

11. Procedures & Processes
AD Constraints as Socio-Cultural Conditioning of Individuals and Groups
AD Area
“Know What
Procedures & Processes
“Know that
Tracking and Monitoring of Student Performance
Unavailability of students for advice; Lack of communication and consultation; Political interference from the side of student organisations and SRC. (Head of Department)
Incorrect HEMIS data especially on credits; Lack of a user-friendly data management system that is aligned with other institutional data systems (Dean’s Office)
There is no proper monitoring of the process; Assessment marks are not always submitted on time to allow for effective tracking and also I believe HEDA is not used as efficiently as it should be (Campus Rector/DVC Office) •

12. HELM Standard Operating Procedures” for Student Academic Development
(5W+H Principle) What
Why
Who
When
Where
How
Student Profiling, Access and Placement Testing
High-risk courses & mitigation strategies
Tutorials, Peer Assisted Learning, Mentorship
Student Academic Advising (Dev modules; Reading and Writing Centres; Information Literacy)
Student Tracking and Monitoring Strategy
Students for Excellence Awards
Tracer and Impact Studies
Overseeing all AD activities of the Department and taking ownership of the SOP

13. Framework for Academic Performance Tracking and Monitoring
Term 4
HELM Board
Student Retention/ Success
Term 3
HELM Board
MER: “Flagged students” & Interventions
Data Management Developmental Research
Term 2
HELM Board
Vertical, (hierarchical) alignment
MER: “Flagged students” & Interventions
Term 1
HELM Board
Academic Performance Targets & Metrics
Student Profiling
Welcome
Orientation
Test 1
Test 2
Assignment
Final Test
Horizontal, (cross unit) alignment in a semester/Year Module

14. 1st Stage Analysis: HELM Practices as the Reflexivity Modes
Main narrative-student underprepared-ness, the student deficit model;
Constrained HELM practices as a reproducing system/morphostasis for disadvantage, marginalisation and exclusion; the Dialectical Relation of Structure and Agency;
Reflexivity modes (Archer, 2005),
Cases of autonomous reflexive deliberations, the plans are prepared only to serve the compliance culture but the action is not internalised as a form of engagement broadly. Ideal, at least, would be the communicative reflexive modes, extensive forms of engagement.
Fractured reflexive mode, clear evidence about passivity about student learning. An absence of purposive action and to making decisions in an essentialist way, which could be understood as a distressful and anxious situation (Khan et al, 2015).

15. 1st Stage Analysis: HEML Practices as the Reflexivity Modes
Co/meta-reflexivity,
Leadership practices that do not only carry out the implementation, monitoring and improvement plans about the teaching and learning, but can also reflect on such actions in order to identify the academic development projects for student success.
HE as the social emancipation and empowerment project.
Need for the provision for the potential to explain the transcendence between the structure and agency by ensuring that the requisite culture is better accounted for.
Creation of faculty conversations as spaces for engagement, for interrogating the improvement plans by means of academic development data.
Through such spaces, both faculty management and academic development practioners, knowledge of and for transformation, a continous process of engagement.

16. Dealing with the dilemmatic positions in transformation is about knowledge actualised
Focus for academic developers: to be more on access to the reality or knowledge of reality (epistemic), not simply access to practices and their ‘grammar”’ (pedagogical);
Focus on the normative goods of the discipline being learnt or taught, Muller, 2014;
Professional practice as transcending both the objective and the subjective, the individual and group, and thus as reflexive-dialectical , the embodiment/praxis (Kemmis, 2009);
Knowledge as both processes/procedural and product: Knowledge of and for transformation (Lange, 2014 );
Transformational versus transformative leadership practices (Shields);
HELM transformation of LT in realist terms:
Leadership of teaching (by explicitly including knowledge and evidence related to teaching and learning) for student learning ) Quinlan, 2014

17. Insights about TMS and HELM practices as the dialectical relation of Structure and Agency
TMS provides conceptual tools to HELM for mediating the gap between the policy objectives and policy implementation, it takes the realist understanding thereof, of identification and recognition of what the lacks are for transformation to actually take place,.
Epistemological access is therefore HELM access to powerful knowledge (about student access and success; the enablers thereof) and then how that knowledge is actualised (b.m.o data management and institutional research, for quality management information systems and effective decision making);
HELM access to knowledge to be about the knowledge of and for transformation (Lange, 2014); to be about professional practice including acceptable modes of reflexivity (social realist lens).

18. Preliminary Conclusion
Paper, the account of student tracking and monitoring might allow for socially inclusive education by focussing on HELM practices. Demonstration that the current structural arrangements in the form of HELM practices and per the selected cases are constrained in achieving the social justice objectives and therefore student disadvantage, marginalisation and exclusion continues to be perpetuated.
HELM practices as agency are not providing the acceptable forms of reflexivity about how student learning might be better tracked and monitored, hence the current and enduring culture of student under performance. This then also poses a huge risk in the annually reported institutional performance data, albeit being aggregated at macro level.
Integrated academic development, and its advocacy for co/meta-reflexivity, provides alternative opportunity for a turn around situation as it has a direct bearing to student performance, especially in the event that there are clear academic monitoring and support systems. Analysis of student performance data and on regular basis should be the main feature of academic monitoring which leads to credible learner support.

19. References……..1/2
Archer, MS (2005). Making our way through the world: the morphogenetic approach. Cambridge, Cambridge University press
Bhaskar, R, (1989). The possibility of naturalism. Brighton, Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Boughey, C, (2014). The significance of structure, culture and agency in supporting and developing student learning at South African universities. In Dhunpath, R & Vithal R (Eds): Alternative Access to Higher Education. Underprepared Students or Underprepared Institutions? Pearson.
Dhunpath, R and V, (2014). Alternative access to university: Past, present and future. In Dhunpath, R & Vithal R (Eds): Alternative Access to Higher Education. Underprepared Students or Underprepared Institutions? Pearson.
Tinto, V, (2012). Completing College: Rethinking Institutional Action. Chicago. University of Chicago Press.
Kahn, P; Everington, L; Kelm, K.; Reid, I; Watkins, F, (2015). Understanding student engagement in online learning environments: the role of reflexivity. Education Tech Research Dev DOI /s

20. References………2/2
Kemmis, S. (2009). “Understanding Professional Practice: A Synoptic Framework”. Green, B (Ed), Professional Learning: Understanding and Researching Professional Practice. Sense Publishers. Rotterdam
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