I work our "Last date of Attendance" report daily, reaching out to students who have missed classes. This is done through phone calls, emails, and formal letters. Many students are very responsive, but of course, some are not.
I also get updates from instructors regarding students they are concerned about, who are exhibiting warning signs and reach out to those students as well.
I also coordinate student events to encourage students to connect with the faculty and staff as well as their fellow students. The more students feel at home on campus, the more likely they are to seek assistance when needed.
Our school has polices in place to address these problems. They are similar to yours. A student must call off for class if we do not receive a call we must call to check on student and advise them of what they missed in class etc. If we have no contact after three days the department chair will call the student. The purpose of the calls are to resure the student that they can still return. We can not leave a message that would violate the students privacy.
We have a policy that if a student is absent, he should contact the instructors he has for that day and earns points for doing so. If he does not contact the instructor, the instructor has to contact him and he loses points.
Once the student has missed two consecutive days and contact has not been made by either party, the Program Director tries to contact the student to find out what is going on.
Most times, the reasoning behind the absence can be resolved. Sometimes there are issues that cannot be resolved on the instructor or Program Director level and we send them to Student Services. There are two very dedicated ladies that work in Student Services that find creative ways to help our students to stay in school. Sometimes even though every effort is made to save a student, they end up dropping anyway.
Our school has 2 student services coordinators. When we feel a student is having problems, whether personal, or relating to attendance they are directed to our Program Director as well as to students services. These 2 areas of our facility extremely reduce the amount of students who might be thinking of withdrawing from the school.
Certainly instructors have the most routine contact with students so it makes sense that they are likely the ones to identify problems.
What's the mechanism to inform program advisors? Does the instructor have any responsibility for what happens after that?
You might want to consider more frequent reviews of students. A lot can happen in half a term.
Who's involved with the reviews that you perform? What aspects of the student experience do you evaluate? Grades? Attendance? Non-academic issues?
The instructors are the initial people we look to too assist in knowing the students who are having problems off the bat, they inform thier program advisors and we met with the student.
One practice that we use is to conduct mid-term evaluations. We go over the progress of the student, discuss their future progress, and make recommendations on how to meet those goals.
Being interested and involved will give you the oportunities to intervene and inteligence as well as experience will guide us through each scenario optimally
My students are involved in thier externship, therefore, we all do frequent check ups on them and request thier presence back to campus for several reasons throughout the completion of thier program.
This term I had my students write an Academic Biography on the first day. I was surprised at how candid students were about their failures in high school and middle school. Many had dropped out for a variety of reasons. I was able to point out to the class that nearly everyone here has had similar struggles and obstacles and that no one is unique. This connection has made a difference in this group of students. The newer students recognize that the veteran students have had some of the same trials and have managed to be successful. This has led to a positive attitude amongst most of my class. I have encouraged other instructors to do this exercise as well.
I have recently had to pose this question to a few of my students. Each class is so very different in the way that they approach their education. Most of my students "say" that they are motivated but then "show" me different by not showing up to class in a timely manner (or at all). I then ask them, "Would you hire someone with your history of attendance?" The response is usually one where the facial expression says it all. It tells me that they hadn't thought about how this may affect employment opportunities.
Whenever a student is absent, the instructors contact the students by telephone and email. To prevent stagnation, we often change instructors (there are at least 2 qualified for each class).
We have begun a peer-to-peer tutoring session and have also asked alumni to become mentors to current students.
I would like to set up a student resource that promotes car-pooling or ride-sharing and have a list of certified child care providers. Transportation and Child Care seem to be the prevalent issues at our campus.
I personally creat some kind of rapport with the students from the beginning by making small talk and feeling them out. So when I see certain expressions on thier face or body language then I immediately approach them to inquire about "whats wrong you dont seem to be feeling well" or "whats the matter your are not your usual happy self".
At my school we have a student services dept. that help students with obstacles that get in the way of thier academic success. Students are referred on a need be basis. Some of the help they can get is with:
Day care
Transportation
Shelter
Domestic violence
Counseling
Part time jobs
That's effective if the dream they had was realistic, but do you ever encounter a student whose dream far exceeded the scope of the course or the ability of the school to deliver?
I'm confused by your entry, Jeff. Do you mean that attendance has improved since you started calling students? Your entry says that attendance has dropped [gone down] since implementing the calling strategy.
I try to remind the student of the dream that they had on the first day of class. Bring them back to the long term and not short term. Talk about the future and the all good that can come out of thinking forward.
All instructors at my institution are required to contact students who are absent by both phone and email. A simple message from the student’s instructor sends the message that we care. We have to be careful when leaving messages (FERPA) on their phones. We simply identify ourselves and ask them to call back, no more details.
I was a proponent to contacting students at first. I felt that in college we should not have to call students as they are adults, but since implementing this strategy I have experienced a rather large drop in overall attendance in my classes.
I personally have learned that if I identify attendance issues early and "call the student out", as the students call it. Attendance issues in many cases can be corrected. I of course do this privately and professionally.
Is this a third party group or do you have a separate business unit that provides the support services? How are they compensated?
