UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — In fall 2023, Penn State student Haley Ramsey’s health issues took her focus away from her coursework. She was in danger of earning less than a C in her HIST 302W course, she said, which would mean retaking it again in the future, costing more time, money and effort. As she worked to recover her grade, she still wasn’t getting the marks she expected in the writing-intensive course.
Ramsey, a history major from Harrisburg, would ultimately pass the course with credit, partly due to her renewed, determined focus, she said, but also thanks to communication with her academic adviser and instructor, initiated by a Starfish progress survey.
Progress survey periods happen twice per semester for full-semester undergraduate courses — first in week five, then in the middle of the semester over the course of about a month. Instructors can share information about each student’s course progress by assigning to-dos, raising flags or giving kudos. Academic advisers are then asked to follow up with students about to-dos and flags to see if the student needs help, be it tutoring, advice or connection with a resource. Sometimes, students are dealing with events in their personal lives that disrupt their education, such as illness, a death in the family or a natural disaster.
When Ramsey’s instructor, Laura Sapelly, raised a Starfish flag alerting her she was in danger of earning less than a C, Ramsey said she first took the news about her grade as a personal attack because she had been putting in the effort to get back on track.
“I had been trying really hard to redeem myself after my health issues and I was utilizing the tutor.com resource and was getting good reviews from there,” Ramsey said. However, the grades she earned didn’t reflect her effort.
The flag then prompted outreach from her academic adviser at Penn State World Campus, Julian Fung. In an interview, Fung said HIST 302W can be a challenging course and features many writing assignments. After some communication with Ramsey and Sapelly, Fung said he got a sense that the two were not on the same page about course expectations.
“It is hard for me to admit when I am struggling but he (Fung) made it not feel so shame-worthy, like it felt in my head,” Ramsey said. “He was also very attentive and listened when I was communicating about what was going on with the professor and he gave me several options of what I could do but ultimately I decided to stick it out.”
Ramsey said hearing the suggestion that she should drop the course fueled her to redouble her efforts and press on. After connecting with Sapelly, she changed her writing style and earned better grades, enough to pass the course for credit. She said she was determined to figure out why she wasn’t earning better grades and to correct it.
“I realized that coming from a psychology/research paper background was messing with writing style that is best used for writing about history,” Ramsey said. “I didn’t have any personality in my papers, because in research, you are told to remove your personality and opinions. Once I spoke more in-depth with Professor Sapelly, and we came to an understanding that she just wanted me to be the best writer that I could be, I adjusted my writing style and began to get perfect grades on all of my writing assignments.”
Not all stories end the way Ramsey’s did; Fung said many students don’t respond at all to outreach. Sometimes a student’s struggles can be directly linked to life events over which they have no control. But there are cases where communication can help break through.
“Usually, the student has both the desire and the capacity to succeed,” he said. “Many times what’s missing is communication between the instructor and the student to get them on the same page. The instructor wants the student to pass, and the student wants to pass. Sometimes they just need to start working together so the instructor can help the student succeed.”
Even if a student can’t recover enough to pass the course, they should be aware of options other than failing the course, Fung said.
“Sometimes the result is that they end up dropping the course or withdrawing from the semester,” Fung said. “Obviously, the best outcome is that the student passes the class. But if the student recognizes they’re maybe not in a position to take the class at this time and drops the class, that’s also a better outcome than the student failing the class.”
Sapelly, who has a joint appointment with the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and History departments as assistant teaching professor, said she’s had multiple cases where simply getting everyone on the same page yielded positive results. She recalled one case where a student was sending her a lot of long emails with excuses, which can be a red flag, she said. When the student turned in work, it was good, but overall they were inconsistent. Sapelly also learned the student had some complaints about her as an instructor. She got on a Zoom call with the student, their academic adviser and an accommodation specialist to talk it out.
“And that’s all we needed,” she said. “But Starfish definitely helped with that, because it got us all on the same page. And once the student met with me, and we talked about the entire situation, that really helped.”
Since their interaction, Ramsey and Sapelly formed a connection that transcended the course. Sapelly wrote Ramsey a letter of recommendation for her current job, and Ramsey expressed her gratefulness for Sapelly’s help and support.
“You can tell that she cares about her students doing well and actually learning, not just getting passing grades,” Ramsey said. “While I couldn’t see it at first, I will forever be grateful to her dedication to help me get on the right track.”
Mid-semester progress surveys open until March 20
Starfish mid-semester progress surveys are open now until Wednesday, March 20. During this period, all instructors and teaching assistants formally listed as instructors of record for full-semester undergraduate courses in LionPATH will receive an email prompt to share information about students’ course progress.
Progress surveys can be completed by clicking the emailed link or opening outstanding surveys within Starfish. Instructors and teaching assistants then check boxes corresponding to to-dos, flags and kudos for each student and, if they wish, provide written comments. A video on how to complete a progress survey is available on Kaltura.
Even after progress surveys close, instructors can always share concerns with a student's academic support network in Starfish using another method.
Starfish at Penn State is maintained by the Division of Undergraduate Studies, which also provides leadership on academic advising across the University. DUS is part of Penn State Undergraduate Education.