Navigate Staff for Instructors
Instructors can provide valuable support for their students using Navigate Staff. Keep reading to learn more.
Navigate Staff Basics
Instructors can log in to Navigate Staff by searching for it in the Pioneer Portal. It can also be pinned as an app in the Pioneer Portal.
After logging in with your campus username and password, you will be taken to your home page. If your only role on campus is as an instructor, the page will say "Professor Home" at the top. If you have any other staff roles, such as an academic advisor, you may see "Staff Home" at the top, with an arrow just to the right of that title. Click on that arrow to toggle between "Staff Home" and "Professor Home".
On your Professor home page, you will see a list of the courses you are teaching in the current term. You can view course lists from previous terms by changing the term in the Term dropdown menu.
Next, you will see the list of students in your courses this term. Note that this list is in alphabetical order by the students' last names. Their course and section are listed, but all your courses and sections are combined. You can also view student lists from previous terms by choosing a different term from the dropdown menu.
Finally, if you have issued alerts for any students in the past, these alerts will be listed in the "My Issued Alerts" section. When cases for students you have issued alerts for are closed, you will receive a notification by email and can view the case closed reason in this section of Navigate. If you have further questions regarding the case outcomes for alerts you issued, please contact stars@uwplatt.edu.
Completing progress reports
One of the most valuable ways instructors can use Navigate Staff is to complete progress reports when requested for certain students. Communications will go out each semester, approximately four weeks into the term, requesting that you complete your progress reports. There is a link you can click on in your email, but any time you log into Navigate Staff when you have incomplete progress reports, a large gold banner will appear across the top of your Professor home page. Click the "Fill Out Progress Reports" button within the banner to get started.
The progress report page will appear, titled "Student Feedback" at the top. Each of your course sections will have its own section on the page. For each student listed, please identify which, if any, of your students are in need of academic assistance. If you choose yes to indicate that a student is in need of assistance, then please choose just one of the available reasons listed in the textbox. We understand that the student may be struggling in multiple areas, but please choose just the most pressing concern. Additional details are helpful for every student, but they can be especially helpful to add context if you feel the student is struggling in multiple areas. Please take extra care to provide comments if you choose "Other" for the reason the student is in need of assistance.
There are two "submit" options at the bottom of the page. The first reads, "Submit only marked students (but I'm not done)". Progress reports do not need to be completed all at once. If you choose to submit only for some students at a time, you can keep choosing this option. Students will remain on your list until you have marked them as "Yes" or "No" in needing assistance, if you continue to use that first option. You can continue to use the link in your email or the banner on your Professor home page to continue to complete your progress reports.
The second option reads, "Submit unmarked students as not in need of academic assistance (I'm all done)". You can use this option to only mark students in need of assistance as "Yes", and then the system will by default assume that students with no indication are not in need of assistance. Once you click this button, you will no longer be able to access your progress report for this semester, so please be careful when choosing that option. If you do submit your progress reports before you intend to, contact stars@uwplatt.edu.
Submitting ad hoc alerts
You may be wondering about students who are not on the progress reports list. Instructors can submit an alert for any of their students at any time, including students who were on the progress report list and those who were not. Please reach out to students in your classes directly about any concerns you have with their attendance, performance, etc., but you can also submit an alert to loop in other campus staff or if you have not been successful in reaching the student.
There are two easy ways to submit an alert for students in your classes. First, scroll down to the "Student In My Courses" list. Scroll through the list until you locate the correct student. Click the checkbox to the left of their name, and then select the "Actions" button in the top left of the list. Select the "Issue Alert" option from that list. Complete the workflow by selecting one reason the student is need of support, identifying the specific class (if applicable), and then adding comments.
Second, there is an "Actions" menu in the upper right of your Professor Home page. That menu includes an "Issue an Alert" link. Click that to pull up the alert workflow. With this workflow, you will first need to search for the student you want to submit the alert for. This allows you to more quickly find the student you need than scrolling (if you are teaching a large number of students), and it will allow you to issue an alert for a student who is in need of some support but who is not in your class this semester (e.g., a student involved in a student organization you advise). When searching, the last four digits of the student's ID number will appear - please verify that you have identified the correct student when submitting your alert. Complete the rest of the alert workflow in the same manner as above.
Need help?
If you have questions, please contact Student Advising and Academic Resources at 608.342.1081 or stars@uwplatt.edu.