making personal connections
A simple "who are you" form is used in my class that gives me some idea of who I have and gives me opportunities to find common ground with my students. I try to pick out the ones who seem to keep to themselves or are having problems and re read their form. Just making simple conversation about something personal to them can change their attitude for the whole class.
I agree with you 100%. I find that having something in common, or a common ground is important for students in the admissions process. They're coming to me as an admissions rep looking for guidance and help in getting to the next step in life. It's always a lot easier for me to assist and for the student to trust me once we have a established common ground. Whether it's us being parents or even having a musical interest in common it goes a long way to be able to talk something we share interest in besides enrolling them into school.
I agree with you , I do pretty much the same and I also have student meet each other and get them to work and know each other it helps them be more involved on helping each other.
I find great success in just talking to students during lab exercises.Where do you work? What hobbies or activities are you involved? How is everything going? Often you learn their strengths and weaknesses and can ask, how can I help you? (with things like advice,tutoring,direction to on campus services, etc). Most of the time there is a reason that a student is not doing well and if you can get them to open up, you have the opportunity to help which in turn helps them focus on their education!
We don't necessarily discuss it with the group (although that is a good idea). We discuss it in faculty meetings to determine best ways to approach concerns. It might be something that we want to track to help instructors understand how they are contributing to or reducing first-week anxiety and stress on the part of the student.
Great questions. It is part of the students file, and is used to help with module to module hand-off between teachers. The questionnaire itself asks for the following information:
* Name
* Favorite Subject in High School
* Least Favorite Subject in High School
* Thing that most excites you about being back in school
* One thing that you are really worried about
* What are couple of things you would really like me to know about you as a student and person
We then sit down with each student and go over their form. It has been a very successful process for us.
No question that the first weeks are important for retention. Do you aggregate the results of the end of first week questionnaire? If so, do you discuss the results with the students as a group? Seems to me that that could be an enlightening experience for everyone. May comfort students to know that they aren't the only one with a concern or give insight that others have found a solution to their issue.
Is this a form that you developed yourself or is this something that is part of the students file and available to everyone? What sort of information do you ask for? Is it largely demographic or do you do some personal probing?
I like this method. we do something similar at my school. we do an initial questionnaire and interview with all students in our new classes where we ask what were there favorite classes/least favorite classes in high school, why did you choose to come to our college, etc. We follow this up with an end of first week questionnaire which helps to assess what they liked, what they didn't like, what they'd like to see more of, less of, etc. It has helped our faculty focus their efforts in that first week and second week, which substantially assists with retention.
