News Byte: Chronicle of Higher Education Article Focuses on Reinventing the Student Experience

A recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education highlights how New York Institute of Technology pivoted in response to COVID-19, how it is preparing for a new academic year, and its plans for supporting student success inside and outside the classroom, despite the continuing pandemic.

Through innovation and collaboration, New York Tech successfully completed the spring semester, transitioning more than 1,500 sections into remote teaching. Based on an end-of-semester survey, nearly 80 percent of students responding were satisfied with their professors’ move to remote learning. The students also helped identify what they want going forward, with “more than 75 percent indicating that efforts to instill remote learning with classroom discussion, regular communication about progress, time flexibility, and collaboration with other students had been important to their studies,” the article reports.

At the same time, the survey findings ideally will affect how faculty teach with technologies and provide insights on optimizing the learning experience to ensure student success, as measured by retention and degree completion, among other factors.

Under the leadership of Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Junius Gonzales, M.D., M.B.A., New York Tech faculty will continue to instill a growth mindset in students, encouraging them to see difficult tasks as opportunities to stretch and learn new skills, the article notes.

Building on that point, Fran Glazer, Ph.D., associate provost for educational innovation and director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, said, “Our faculty was comfortable enough with technology to provide students the right experiences as they continued to learn, and we imagine faculty imparting their best practices to teach each other going forward.”

As students’ overall success is impacted by what occurs outside the classroom as well, “We performed whatever we had to do to make sure that students still had access to the same events, services, and resources, so that they know we still care about their student experience,” said Tiffani Blake, M.Ed., interim assistant provost for student engagement and development.

Read the complete article in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

This article is part of a strategic initiative in which New York Tech has partnered with leading higher education and consumer-focused media to help drive awareness and build reputation for the institution by reaching education influencers and decision makers and prominently positioning New York Tech as a vibrant institution of higher learning.