Retention
I know I do my part in teaching the student the proper method, but it must also be the student that put in their part.
Hi Abdalla,
This is a great list of ways to include students and offer instruction. You are showing them how you will be supportive of their efforts if they will study hard and develop the needed skills.
Gary
I teach mathematics and alot of students do not like Math and it is hard to keep them in classes.
There are few things I do:
1) I work very hard to remember every students
name
2) During every lecture I call on every students by name to answer a simple question.
3) I encourge students to go to tutoring center and get help
4) I spend my office hours in the tutoring center helping the students.
4)At the end of every lecture I give a simple quiz and that let me know who is the weak students
5) I talked to each weak student after class or ask them to see me at the tutoring center.
6) I give the students list of simple problems that can do first and that helping them do the difficult once instead of shy away from it
Hi Humberto,
It is the personal touch that makes the difference. By showing your students that you care about them and their success in your class you are letting them know you want them to succeed. Keep up the good work. You are a powerful influence in the lives of these students.
Gary
most of the time students have many responsabilities otuside school and give the priority over studies, i find that if we as teacher make them understand that if they hang in there and complete the courses, the certificate will help the more than if they drop. doing this with some coaching in how they can overcome their problem 90% of the time work in reteining the students
Barbara,
I believe it is importatnt that as instructors we set the environment for learning and do it in many different ways. Over the last two quarters, we began utilizing guest speakers who are experts in their field to aid in our learning process. We decided to invite them early in the quarter (i.e. weeks 1 - 4) to help students visualize what they will do when they graduate. We believe that this will help motivate the student to "want to learn" and to continue through the entire program and graduate.
Hi Joel,
Yes, there are cycles which means we have to work even harder when we see these students sitting on the fence ready to quit. They need out support and encouragement to keep them in school.
Gary
I think that the student retention issue flows thru cycles. As the different types of students hit different times of the year, they do change their attitude of the learning curve.
Hi Barbara,
Some things that I think will be of help to you are games like Jeopardy. It is a PP that lets you load in your own questions and answers for different point values, just like the TV version. Also, you can use wall posters to highlight facts and figures that students need to know. I have the students make the posters and then post them. By having them create the posters they retain the facts more since they have be actively involved in the physical part of drawing and illustrating the posters. Creating teams to compete in quiz events will help them retain facts and figures as well.
Episodic memory is related to events or activities that learners have been engaged in. Semantic memory is the retaining of facts through repetition and rote memory. Retention is much better if you can tie events and activities to the memory part as it will be much easier for the students to recall the needed facts and figures at a later date if they can store them in their working memory as a result of experiences or episodes from their learning.
Gary
I feel the same way. The student has the responsibility to self motivate as well as I do. They are cheating themselves when they don't pay attention. If they only knew how much the instructor wants them to learn. I want to make my class more motivating for them. What will help them learn all these facts? To help keep it in their heads?
