PASS (Pre-Arrival Success Strategies) is a free online course for students who will be studying with the International College of Manitoba (ICM) in subsequent terms. The course is designed for students who wish to get a head start on their studies. The course is led by ICM alumni who mentor prospective students in navigating the complexities of their new education system. Units are delivered over five weeks and cover a variety of topics, including overviewing the learning management system (Moodle), connecting students with their future classmates, understanding essential elements of course outlines, planning for weekly and term schedules, introducing concepts of academic integrity, and more. Students have flexibility in choosing which units they wish to complete as they accumulate points for each assessment completed - students who complete various achievements earn various rewards. In these slides, Robert Daudet reviews the course content, shares lessons learned from its first iteration, and reveals what's next for the course.

1. Introducing the PASS program:
Pre-arrival success strategies for students
Robert Daudet
Deputy College Director
International College of Manitoba

2. Presentation Overview
• Research
• Content development
• Course delivery
• Next steps

3. Initial Undertaking
• In order to identify how to best support students with their transition
to university studies, a variety of focus groups were conducted with:
• Current students
• Alumni
• Instructors
• Administrative support staff
• While many services exist for students upon arrival and throughout
the academic life cycle, more could be done for students prior to
departure from their home countries.

4. …and so came to be PASS
(Pre-Arrival Success Strategies)
• Aim of the course is for students to:
• Have a smoother transition to studies in Canada
• Acquire autonomy skills to take ownership of their academic undertakings
• Start building their social networks at ICM

5. Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
By the conclusion of this course, students will be able to:
• Operate key features of the Moodle learning management system;
• Send appropriate communications to their instructors from their Student
Portal email account;
• Locate and understand ICM policies and procedures;
• Develop personalized study plans for the effective pursuit of an
undergraduate degree;
• Understand the concepts of academic integrity in a Canadian post-secondary
environment; and
• Interact with future classmates through digital channels.

6. Course Units
• Navigating Moodle
• Meeting Your Future Classmates
• Understanding the Student Handbook & Portal
• Understanding Your Program Plan
• Organizing Your Term & Weekly Schedule
• Activating & Using Student Portal Email
• Learning What Is Academic Integrity
• Adopting Key Study Tips from Alumni
• Evaluating the Course and Looking Forward

7. Content Development
• Business Unit stakeholders came
together for a rethink day, working
together on developing unit content.
• Various assessment tasks and
activities were created to allow
students to demonstrate their
attainment of these ILOs through
completion of both formative unit
tasks and a summative final
assessment.
• To help students with these unit
assessments, video tutorials, write-
ups, and exemplars were provided to
students to assist with their learning.

11. Course Delivery
• Units delivered over the course of five weeks
• Units launched two at a time
• Students could complete assessments until course end date

12. Flexible Approach
• The concern with offering a non-credit non-compulsory course is that
students may not register in it. To make it meaningful for students, they
need to see personal value.
• As explored by Cornelius, Gordon, & Ackland, designing courses with
flexible learning options can lead to greater ‘freedom and self-direction’ of
learners (2011, p.382). Encouraging students to take ownership of their
learning can result in better addressing individual needs.
• Flexibility in options include:
• Students can choose which units they complete
• No specific deadlines for assignments (aside from course end date)
• Opportunities to resubmit assessments
• Points gained instead of marks assigned

13. Schedule of Activities
• Using Salmon’s ‘Five-Stage Model’ (2013), the course units were
offered in such a way to facilitate:
• Access & Motivation – Learning how to use Moodle, multimodal approach to
learning, connecting with peers
• Online Socialization – Sharing information about cultural celebrations,
activating student email account
• Information Exchange – Participating in message boards to discuss course
content
• Knowledge Construction – Completing assessments
• Development – Participating in a summative assessment with questions of
reflection

14. Alumni as Instructors
• Through the gap analysis, it became apparent that having a
formalized mentorship program for incoming students would be
worth exploring.
• Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick (2006) suggest that students may be more
open to receiving feedback from their peers.
• Interviews were conducted with alumni, who were asked to present
their ideas on what they would have liked to have seen in this course,
had it been offered to them when they were preparing to come to
Canada.

15. Pilot Course
• The first iteration of PASS was launched in July-August 2018
• 351 students registered in PASS
• 100 students met the minimum 700 point requirement
• Students from 27 different countries completed PASS

16. Student Feedback
• Students overwhelmingly provided positive feedback on the instructors,
particularly relating to their status as alumni leaders.
• Most students reflected that they felt more confident in approaching their
studies at ICM, particularly relating to study strategies and course selection.
• Students perceived various future challenges that may present themselves upon
arriving in Canada, which were not addressed in PASS, but many addressed in
other pre-arrival webinars.
• Constructive feedback was provided, including the following suggestions:
• Clarify process for choosing courses;
• Provide additional exemplars for students to review;
• Investigate alternate options for streaming videos, as current ones were slow to load, as well
as closed captioning options;
• Embed documents to prevent them having to be downloaded;
• Provide more opportunities for interaction between classmates, including synchronous
sessions and live chat options.

17. Recommendations
• In future iterations of the course, we will:
• Add discussion board and chat functions to increase interaction
• Include pre-departure webinar as a course unit, as to provide additional
information to students and add a social element at the onset of the course
• Develop course facilitator guides to aid new instructors in the delivery of this
course
• Release new unit every 5 days as opposed to two at a time
• Modify course evaluation to ask students to rate their satisfaction and
confidence levels on a scale of 1-10 (also include confidence level in course
pre-test for comparison)

18. References
• Cornelius, S., Gordon, C. & Ackland, A., 2011. Towards flexible learning for adult learners in professional
contexts: an activity-focused course design. Interactive Learning EnvironmentsInteractive Learning
Environments, 19(4), pp.381–393. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10494820903298258.
• Daudet, R., 2018. Course Design to Aid International Students with their Transition to University Life in
Canada. University of Edinburgh.
• Nicol, D.J. & Macfarlane‐Dick, D., 2006. Formative assessment and self‐regulated learning: a model and
seven principles of good feedback practice. Studies in Higher Education, 31(2), pp.199–218. Available at:
http://www.tandfonline.com.ezproxy.is.ed.ac.uk/doi/abs/10.1080/03075070600572090.
• Salmon, G., 2013. E-tivities: the key to active online learning. In E-tivities in the five-stage model. London:
Kogan Page, pp. 15–35. Available at:
http://www.ezproxy.is.ed.ac.uk/login?url=http://www.tandfebooks.com/isbn/9780203074640.