Students life and support services
4.2 Students Life and Support Services
Objectives
● To explore the essential components of effective student support services in digital and distance education (DE).
● To identify and understand the challenges and specific needs of DE students, with a focus on engagement, well-being, and retention.
● To examine best practices and institutional strategies for improving student support, especially in the first year of university.
● To introduce and apply the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework for pedagogical support and “Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education” in adult online learning.
● To foster collaboration between institutions through teamwork, presentations, and the co-design of institutional action plans.
● To guide participants in the development of a Service Charter to structure
and communicate their student support commitments.
Expected Learning Outcomes
By the end of this seminar, participants will be able to:
● Describe the key pillars of student support in distance and digital education, based on the models of UNED and the University of Alicante.
● Identify common student profiles, challenges, and needs in online learning environments.
● Evaluate institutional strategies for promoting student engagement, retention, and well-being in DE contexts.
● Collaboratively design a student support program for first-year DE students adapted to their institutional context.
● Apply the Community of Inquiry framework to design pedagogical support emphasizing teaching, social, and cognitive presence.
● Analyze and discuss examples of good practices in digital student support services across institutions.
● Develop a draft institutional Service Charter for student support, articulating a commitment to accessible, inclusive, and quality services.
Methodology
The training seminar will last a total of 20 hours. Participants will work individually and
collectively as follows:
The seminar aims to be practical and will focus on two main issues. Institutional student support services and the pedagogical support to be provided by teachers in the context of digital education.
Concerning institutional services, the services of an on-site university (U. of Alicante) and those of a distance university (UNED) will be presented. As a practical activity, it will be proposed to each university to develop a Student Services Charter.
Moreover, we have prepared a Practical Workshop on Pedagogical Support for Students, Delivered in a Blended Format. This workshop adopts a blended methodology, combining an online preparatory phase with in-person sessions.
Before the face-to-face sessions
● Teamwork for the preparation of an institutional presentation of no more than five minutes per institution, covering the primary services/units currently available to students
● As part of the online preparatory phase of the Workshop on Pedagogical support, participants are expected to view three short instructional videos. This activity is intended to lay the groundwork for the practical work that will take place during the in-person sessions, following a flipped teaching methodology. Detailed instructions for the online phase are sent and available at the Google Drive folder.
On-site sessions
The face-to-face sessions will combine presentations by speakers with participant interaction and group activities.
