Arlene Muller

There is a book designed to help students reach graduation.  It was written as a resource to help instructors and students.  It discusses the issues of Transportation,  Day Care and a Part-time job with realistic solutions and more.

It can be found on Amazon and as an e-book on www.coursesmart.com

How to Survive and Maybe Even Love Health Professions School Retention and Career Placement Guide by Publisher F.A. Davis

Jamie, 

I agree that after a few years you need to take inventory of how you are presenting your class.  When I hire instructors I always hired wonderful people who were experts in their field.   However, knowing the information and being prepared to each day to teach was a different story.   I know I needed to remind my instructors that they needed to make sure that each day of class was exciting, positive and informative.  Teaching occurs when the "light goes on" in a students eyes.

You might want to visit an outside Blog: www.retentionspecialisttoday.infor/blog/

Juanita, Your comments are so true.  When people have never taught before, they sometimes do not understand that each day takes preparation because each class is different in their learning.    I acknowledge you for your efforts to plan different class activities.  My book How to Survive and Maybe Even Love Health Professions School, Retention and Career Planning Guide has a chapters on Learning Style, Activities based on Learning Styles, How to Study, How to Take a Test, and How to Form a Study Group.  I also believe that teaching is very different from lecturing.

Yes, retention is a Team effort by faculty and staff.  Retention also needs to be standarized.  Each classroom needs to  start and end on time.  Students are requireed to be on time and are not allowed to be 5 min. late.  The instructors need to start on time and not wait for late students to drift in one at a time.  When you are trying to create habits that will lead to employment in the years to come, each classroom must have the same standard to be consistant in the training of attendance.  If a student attends class they will… >>>

A top priority in the classroom needs to be Customer Service because the students have invested from$5,000- $46,000 in their education to reach a  new career.  It is sometimes hard to grasp that fact, since at the end of class instructors do not wrap up any skills or place the product in a brightly decorated bag and say, " Thank you for shopping at our school today.."  An instructor is constantly motivating the student to reach graduation and the best toll is with excellent Customer Service.

Arlene Muller