With fall semester kicking off, colleges around the world are gearing up for what the newfound academic experience will look like given COVID-19 implications. How are we helping to have a successful fall semester?
To fortify academic rigor, the online/remote experience, and on-campus health checks, CU Denver leadership developed four new positions for current students. They filled quickly, with 61 students hired to help support 157 course sections across all schools and colleges.
Student Course Assistants
Student Course Assistants are working behind the scenes to help provide logistical and technological support to faculty teaching remote and hybrid courses. These students have been trained to handle a variety of logistical tasks in Zoom including monitoring chat, organizing break-out rooms, taking attendance, managing screen sharing, facilitating polling, and troubleshooting student technical problems. They are working side-by-side with faculty members and will consistently assist with specific courses for the academic year.
Learning Assistants
Social interaction around high-quality tasks leads to learning, and you need to engage students in talking to each other about the content they are learning. Here is where the Learning Assistants come in. These students are supporting faculty by promoting student interaction and discourse around the content of the supported course. In addition to supporting the implementation of group-worthy activities and tasks, this role involves the development of new activities.
COVID-19 Safe Return Student Ambassadors
Life on campus has changed drastically, which is why Student Ambassadors have been hired to serve as a welcoming presence for all students, staff, and faculty entering CU Denver buildings. Additionally, they are responsible for reminding our campus community of new safety protocols including circulation within buildings, elevator and stair usage, restroom occupancy, queueing procedures in and out of buildings, and the use of PPE and social distancing everywhere on campus. They will also be checking for wristbands, which signify a successful health check-in screening.
COVID-19 Student Contact Tracers/Case Investigators
To help reduce COVID-19 community transmission, COVID-19 Student Case Investigators have joined a fast-paced and dynamic team also composed of Contact Tracers on the Auraria Campus. Collectively this team will work to prevent COVID-19 transmission on campus by remotely isolating sick individuals and placing exposed individuals in quarantine.
The COVID-19 Student Case Investigators and Contact Tracers will conduct case investigations on COVID-19 cases on the Auraria Campus and notify their contacts of exposure and potential risk. These roles will also provide education about isolation and quarantine procedures and physical and mental health resources to cases and contacts.
Contact tracers and case investigators are required to follow all scripts to inform contacts about the importance of quarantine, follow all policies and procedures provided, and comply with confidentiality agreements related to personal information.
They, like the other student positions, are here to help keep our campus community safe and healthy.