ARTICLE INTENDED FOR:
Faculty and staff users of Starfish
INTRODUCTION:
Starfish allows instructors and advisers to communicate to students and their academic support networks at any time of the semester through the "Flag" and "Kudos" buttons. Each Starfish role provides access to a different set of flags and kudos. For example, only Instructors and TAs can provide feedback about a student's progress in a course.
ARTICLE BODY:
When raised, flags and kudos generate email messages to the student, the student's assigned adviser, and to other individuals in a distinct support relationship with the student (e.g., the student's ROTC officer or the student's athletic counselor) using template language. Any comments you choose to add are also included in the emails. All message templates are available on the Starfish Info website.
Students who receive warning flags are expected to take action on that warning. They may reach out to the instructor, TA, or academic adviser to seek additional information.
More importantly, this information helps the student's support network to see the “big picture” of the student’s performance across courses, allowing intervention if the student is in crisis, is missing, or needs help in addressing behaviors negatively associated with academic success.
Once a student works with an adviser, instructor, or TA, the flag should be cleared by whoever interacts with the student. If the flag is cleared by someone other than the flag raiser, the person clearing the flag may choose to send the raiser comments explaining why the flag was cleared. Clearing the flag does not mean the problem is solved, but that the flag was successful in raising attention to the issue.
There are three ways to alert students using Flags and Kudos:
- Manually raise flags or kudos (instructors, TAs, advisers, and other Starfish roles)
- Complete a progress survey (instructors and TAs of full-semester undergraduate courses only)
- Use Canvas grades with the Zoom In feature (instructors and TAs only)
At critical times of the fall and spring semesters, instructors and TAs of full-semester undergraduate courses are asked to complete a progress report survey, which packages a subset of flags and kudos. However, instructors can use any of the available Starfish methods to provide feedback to students and be in compliance with Faculty Senate policy. These alternate methods can be used throughout the semester and are also available to instructors and TAs of graduate courses and others not included in progress surveys. All of the possible alerts and their associated messages are on the Starfish Info website.
LINKS:
- Log in to Starfish: https://starfish.psu.edu
- Faculty Senate policy on progress reporting
- Starfish: Progress reporting FAQ
- Starfish: Messages sent to students and their support network when flags or kudos are raised
- Starfish: Manually raise flags or kudos (for instructors, advisers, and other Starfish roles)
- Starfish: Complete a progress survey (for instructors and TAs only)
- Starfish: Use Canvas grades with the Zoom In feature (for instructors and TAs only)
- Starfish: Managing course-based flags (for advisers and other Starfish roles)
- Get help with Starfish