Navigate user of the month: March 2021

How were you introduced to Navigate and what is your experience using the platform?
Our office initially used carbon copy forms to track student meetings. Moving to Navigate has made it so much easier to plan out four-year plans, record interactions with students, and be more present during meetings. It is so much easier to be present and informed for a meeting with a student as we don't have to head to the file cabinet to pull their files and instead have the information at our fingertips. I often type out their schedule in Navigate, so that we can move courses around with ease and they can update their HokieGPS after the meeting. This also makes replying to those follow up emails quicker and more efficient as I can relay our notes that we discussed in the meeting. It's great for those "I forgot what I should take this semester" emails around course request time :) Navigate has opened up more time for me to positively interact with students and less time filing and finding previous meeting notes!

What is a unique way in which you have used the platform to help students and/or faculty in your department?
I use Navigate as an extension of HokieGPS to build agency with my students so that they have a say in their academic plan. I found a lot of students would initially come in and ask for a schedule I built, and I wanted them to have more ownership of it together. So, Navigate allows for my notes to be a conversation about what they want to take in each semester, outlined there, and then I have them go back in HokieGPS and update their plan so they can make sure everything is covered. I feel like I've had much more rich conversation with their plans and goals than I did previously when it was written and filed away. Allowing them to see what we have planned out also helps them hold themselves accountable to their plan moving forward!