1. Explain the student the contain of the syllabi
2. Build a student support group
3. Instructor to monitor their challenges, guide, and advice (often communication or relation between student instructor)
1) have a one on one with each of my advisees and let them know that I am here for them if they need my assistance.
2) schedule my advisees with a follow up on their academic progress within the next 2 weeks and prior to the end of the session
3) follow up with instructors who have my advisees and find out what their perception is of my advisees and how they feel they are doing academically.
I will recommend the following three activities to take place within the next 30 days at my institution. They are (1) activities, where I will be supervising my students at an off-campus event to raise money for a local charity. (2) I will propose instituting an awards event where students are recognized for their accomplishments and successes at the School. (3) I will help develop and supervise a club that highlights the students' interest in their chosen career.
Contuine with what our school has been doing and contuine being proactive with the students. Watching for signs, calling them when not in class. Giving them a few minutes everday to see how there doing.
I will phone students who have been absent from class to ask them what we can do for them to return to school.
I will be participating in a community event and have 60 students participating with me throughout the four days, giving them a taste of what the industry is and enticing them to stay in school and continue participating in those events.
Continue to communicate with my advisees and provide them with all the necessary information and resources.
Continue to give the best instruction and support possible within my class.
I am a partime, evening instructor, so I feel a little "disconnected" from the daytime instructors and administrators. I can however implememt the following steps as a contributuion to improvign retension.
1. Identify students with 3 or more absences or tardies and contact them to offer assistance.
2. Communicate with the Director of Education daily, through email, any notes from the Friday Faculty Staff meeting pertain to retenion.
3. Connect the dots between the student and how the course is applicable to their future work places.
1. Develop better follow-up strategies for students with issues.
2. Take another online retention class.
3. Ask other instructors about their retention ideas or methods.
I'll make sure that the weekly communication with students has been received, read and that I am available for the students. I'll sit down with students with bad grades to build a game plan for improvement. I'll set some goals for the students that are in danger with their grades.
As I am an instructor in a career college, and only have the students for 3 weeks, retention is somthing that I have little control over. For this rotation I have 2 students that are on my roster that have not showed up at all,if they do not show up today they attendance fail the course. So what am I to do? I cannot call them it is up to the front office to do that. with 100 class running it is diffucult to keep up with all of the no showes. What I do is work with the ones that show up that have problems and work with them, tutoring or refer them to the right office to handle them. We had started a student success advisor position that was in charge of talking to students that were in danger of attendence failing and helping them out. What we found was that a lot of them just did not care wheather they did or not.so we abondaned the position.
We often assume that students have computer access at their homes, but this may not really be the case. Has your institution done any studies to determine how many students have access?
Heavy reliance on access outside of the classroom could be a cause for students to drop out.
Does your school have in-service training? If so, this might be an excellent topic. Is there anything you can do to facilitate this type of discussion?
Good point! Using a platform to enhance communication is a great technique. Most students have computer access at home.
I agree. Talking to other instructors and finding out what they do to improve retention might be helpful.
1. Contact students when absent on a regular basis (This is something I have been doing).
2. Use more anonymous surveys about academic success and goals.
3. I will continue educating myself on this topic.
I will learn who changeed jobs in the student services area so I can send the students to the right person for their needs,wwe have open discussions about what they want to learn from the class I am teaching and what we can do to make it a better class.We have a white boaard in all classes to put what the students think is lacking from tools and training aides and any thing that would make learning easier for them and leave it on the board until it is handled.
1. Get the students involved in what transpires in the classroom. Let them become part of the lecture/demo process.
2. Draw from the student's experiences to show them that they all have the potential to be successful, no matter what the material is, because they have the ability to grasp and retain information presented, and apply what they have learned.
3. When all assigned tasks are completed in a timely manner, let the students know that they have exceeded expectations, and they did it because of their abilities.
Contact all absent students
Visit my past class in their new class
Participate in an off-campus event with students
1. I plan to develop and Management Mentor Program in which new students will be assigned to a member of the managment team who will be responsible for calling the student.
2. In conjunction with the Mentor Program, I plan to hold New Student receptions two weeks after a start. During these receptions, students will have the opportunity to ask questions that they did not have at orientation.
3. I also plan to implement monthly townhall meetings giving continuing students an opportunity to ask questions and discuss concerns.
1. I ask my students to wright a Bio of their self (no mandatory) like this I can have an idea where they came from and what their are looking for.
2. Know them by talking to them every time i have the chance.
3. Assuring that the first step for succes it's made, EDUCATION.
1) Bring the issue up with Administration to clarify who is in charge of any funds in the budget for retention, and also clarify who is responsible for meeting student needs and providing services. It seems to me that lately my institution has "let go" a lot of staff who had been responsible for retention and put the tasks on department managers who implement the ideas haphazardly at best.
2) Provide students with a clearer sense that my institution is concerned about their ability to be successful at school by talking about some of the programs available and soliciting information from them about what would be most useful to improve attendance and a sense of belonging.
3) Work out a more positive paradigm for how I view my institutions attitude toward retention because it often feels really dissociated and numbers oriented. It does not feel like a team effort. There has been an emphasis on retention, but I have found that at critical moments, when I am doing all that I can to retain students under stress, other players at the institution haven't step up and provided students with support or encouragement at critical moments. Maybe I need to examine also how I have communicated with fellow staff about my concerns and sense of urgency with specific students.
