Lane Community College’s student forum, held last week, gave students opportunities to talk with the staff. The gathering had an attendance of three students one on Zoom and two in person. One key issue for students was Moodle.
One student, Leon Bandcroft, who recently enrolled on campus shared their thoughts on Moodle in contrast to Canvas, another popular learning management software. Moodle, according to Bandcroft, had major issues with uploading speed, and keeping track of assignments. One other issue was how difficult it can be to work with less tech-savvy professors. Bandcroft worries that these issues out of their control will impact their education.
Zackary Pemberton, a newcomer to campus, and veteran, felt the same way. He feels as if there’s a “logical disconnect” as orientation did not properly prepare him for Moodle. The program assumes you know how to use programs such as Google Sheets beforehand. The conversation continued into orientation and advisors.
Pemberton struggled with the advisors at LCC more than at his old college. There, he said, he was able to get into a meeting with advisors to map out a path of which classes to take. While at LCC he feels particularly lost and just thrown into a class. He has had to make his own plan for which classes he needs to take which makes things much more difficult.
Bandcroft also had a hard time with advisors. One experience they had was when they struggled to get to campus due to living far away. When speaking to the advisor about this they felt as if the advisor had a very, “tough luck” attitude. The experience made them feel as if the advisor was saying, “What? You don’t want to go to school?” Making it a “my way or the highway” kind of experience which was hard for them especially being very new to the college world.
The topic all three students agreed upon was orientation and advisors. The biggest problem was how disconnected and thrown aside they all felt. The students felt rushed with a mere half-hour time limit to organize and understand their classes.
Orientation didn’t give any guidance either. The students felt orientation was rushed and filled with just general college advice. It left them unaware of most of the resources on campus. Bandcroft described the feeling as, “They barely let you put on your floaties until they dunk you in the ocean.” Many of them had to ask around to get an understanding of their surroundings on campus.
The information gathered today tackled communication issues across LCC. The feedback will be utilized in a report based on the responses of the students to hopefully give a better idea on how to better reach students.
