On Location Delivery (SPA)

In 2023-2024, our team at the Centre for Learning Strategy Support included an On-Location (OL) Learning Strategist at six of the seven undergraduate Colleges within the Faculty of Arts & Science, as well as at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education, and these sites were the focus of our inquiry. 

Data was collected via a jointly crafted survey sent to three years’ worth of students who had ever met with an OL learning strategist, three sets of semi-structured discussions with current students (facilitated by two student research assistants), a survey of our Registrarial partners and other advising colleagues at our OL sites, four focus groups with colleagues across the university generally, and two focus groups with our internal OL learning strategist team. 

Driven in part by our OL service’s alignment with goals 2.2, 4.3, and 5.4 in St. George Student Life’s 2021–26 strategic plan, this SPA was also guided by the two open-ended learning objectives. 

• LO1. What are some of the impacts of the deep 1–1 work that’s possible at OL sites due to closer integration into local support systems? 
• LO2. What are some of the best practices that have emerged over the three years that our team has worked at our OL sites? 

Our findings are both illuminating and validating. Students consistently expressed gratitude for discovering confidential spaces in which they could speak openly and benefit from personalized guidance. Our local partners affirm the value of the OL model not only for the anchor it offers to students navigating a large, decentralized system, but for the strengthened link it enables between partner sites and the programming available through our central service. 

Sample feedback: 

Student: “I like that it’s in the College because it gives me another opportunity to feel more connected within my College’s community…” 

Student: “I strongly suggest investing in hiring more than one strategist per college if the demand is high enough. I truly cannot underscore this enough, I truly do not know or believe that I would still be enrolled and on track to complete my degree without my strategist.” 

Learning Strategist: “And for some of us who’ve been in the role for a few years, that’s also kind of exciting, because there’s this ongoing developmental trend. So, I’m chatting with students now in their fourth year who I first met in their first year, and I think that’s pretty cool. I think it is something that makes the on-location job just joyful.” 

Partner: “Registrarial advising is intrinsically about academic success, and the harmony of close collaboration between the wider tactical/ strategic thinking of degree progress and future-thinking and the skills development is profoundly beneficial.” 

Partner: “Learning strategies are outside of our scope and having someone on location allows for a close working relationship and a holistic approach to helping the student.”