CSU Pathway Courses during COVID-19: A multi-faceted support strategy for online engagement.

Abstract

In March 2020, Charles Sturt University (CSU) launched two new pathway courses: the Diploma of General Studies (DGS) and the CSU Pathway course. These courses are offered at five regional campuses, along with an online offering. This particular cohort of students lack the skills and confidence necessary to engage withuniversity-level study. With the advent of COVID-19, the challenge was to transition the five on-campus cohorts to a fully online mode of delivery within a few weeks. This task was further complicated as a number of teaching staff on the program were new to CSU, with little to no experience teaching explicitly online.This paper showcases the student-centric strategies adopted to transition on-campus students to online delivery. A summary will also be provided of the successes of this approach (to date), particularly in terms of retention and progression, along with the lessons learnt as part of the process.