Starfish: For Educators Who Desire Student Success

Retention Software

Starfish Early Alert offers a single solution to allow faculty, staff, and students to access to a robust amount of information that will contribute to student completion and student success.  With it faculty can record information about the student, such as referrals, and opt to share this information with the student.  Most common among Starfish users, attendance can be recorded and flags can be triggered to remind instructors and administrators that potential issues may be occurring that could impede the success of the student.  When used responsibly, Starfish can assist the instructor, as well as the school, in retaining students and contributing to their success.

How do you access Starfish? 

There are several ways to access the Starfish software when it is integrated in Blackboard. This is particularly useful since Blackboard does not offer a solution for taking attendance.  Access to Starfish all depends on how your school has set up the program.  Depending on how your college sets it up. However, one of the easiest ways to access Starfish is through the Menu of your course.  Simply:

1. Enter your course in Blackboard
2. Go to the Course Menu and select Course Tools
3. Select the Tool called “Starfish”

This will move you into Starfish. You may be greeted with an option to set up your office hours.  You can choose to use this option or ignore it.  Choosing it will only make a record of your office hours and make it easier for students to reach you.

Attendance

Taking attendance in Blackboard will vary depending on whether you teach an online course or a traditional class.  If you teach an online course you will need to set up the attendance feature and select the dates that your wish to record as a designator for attendance.  This could represent each time the student entered the course, or mark for weekly attendance. Since this feature is up to the instructor, it must be created by the instructor.  If you teach a traditional course, the system will automatically import the class times to the attendance calendar.

1. To record attendance, you.
2. Go to the Students Tab
3. Select the Attendance Sub-tab and either:
   1. Select the Students individually and choose the Attendance status and date, or 
   2. Select “Record Attendance”, choose the dates and mark attendance.

What is important to remember is to be sure to select the correct date.

Flags, Referrals, and Kudos

Communication is key to student success.  From the “My Students” sub-tab from the Students tab, you will have the ability to select several options that include:

• Flags: These allow you to alert administration of important issues. Remember this creates a record that can help identify problems before they begin.  It can also help the school identify dangerous situations and tend to them. 
• Referrals:  These will assist students and will not get lost in their notebook.
• Kudos:  Never underestimate the power of positive re-enforcement.  Let the students know when they are succeeded and give them a record that they can choose to share.

To submit any of these, you merely need to:

1. Select the corresponding button
2. Choose the appropriate option from the drop-down menu
3. Add any other comments. It is important to remember that having a record is very useful.

With these tools, you can help better guide the students and make sure less ‘fall through the cracks’. Effectively, you will be contributing to student success.