A Personalized Automated Email Tool to Connect Faculty with Students in Large STEM Courses

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dc.contributor.authorCarpenter, Tara
dc.contributor.authorBass, Sarah M.
dc.contributor.authorHodges, Linda C.
dc.date.accessioned2021-04-14T16:05:52Z
dc.date.available2021-04-14T16:05:52Z
dc.date.issued2019-12-31
dc.description.abstractUndergraduate student success in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors often hinges on the satisfactory completion of large gateway introductory courses such as general chemistry. First-year or transfer students’ achievement in such courses may be affected by their first exposure to the large class format. Specifically, a sense of belonging, a factor shown to be important for student engagement and effort in STEM classes, may be difficult to attain in large classes. We report here on the development and implementation of a personalized, automated email tool as a way for instructors to connect with students, signal their concern for students’ performance, and offer them support. Instructors across the two-semester sequence in a large university general chemistry course used a spreadsheet to sort students into email categories based on their exam performance, differentiating by degree of grade improvement or decline. The corresponding messages offered advice, encouragement, or cautions and invited students to avail themselves of various resources. The emails were sent batchwise but personalized using a Google script function. In an end-of-course survey, students indicated that the emails made them feel the instructor cared, helped support and encourage them, lessened their feelings of anonymity, and helped them improve. This tool provides an easy way for instructors to create a sense of connection and caring in a large class and contribute positively to students’ motivation and achievement.en_US
dc.description.sponsorshipWe gratefully acknowledge the help of Dr. Tory H. Williams in the preparation of this manuscript.en_US
dc.description.urihttp://chemeducator.org/bibs/0024001/24190183.htmlen_US
dc.format.extent14 pagesen_US
dc.genrejournal articles postprintsen_US
dc.identifierdoi:10.13016/m2fesj-bqtd
dc.identifier.citationTara S. Carpenter, Sarah M. Bass and Linda C. Hodges, A Personalized Automated Email Tool to Connect Faculty with Students in Large STEM Courses, Chemical Educator Volume 24 (2019) pp 183-188, http://chemeducator.org/bibs/0024001/24190183.htmlen_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11603/21328
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.publisherThe Chemical Educatoren_US
dc.relation.isAvailableAtThe University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)
dc.relation.ispartofUMBC Chemistry & Biochemistry Department Collection
dc.relation.ispartofUMBC Faculty Collection
dc.relation.ispartofUMBC Faculty Development Center (FDC)
dc.rightsThis item is likely protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Unless on a Creative Commons license, for uses protected by Copyright Law, contact the copyright holder or the author.
dc.rightsThis is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Chemical Educator. The final authenticated version is available online at: http://chemeducator.org/bibs/0024001/24190183.html.
dc.titleA Personalized Automated Email Tool to Connect Faculty with Students in Large STEM Coursesen_US
dc.typeTexten_US

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