Attrition
I think this area is more challenging than in the classroom. When you have face to face contact, you can see a student struggle more quickly than on-line.
Daily communications would be imperative to see early signs.
Earlene,
Very good. Encourage and timely, accurate communication will resolve a great many challenges for students. Thank you for your contribution.
Dr. S. David Vaillancourt
I definately agree that the Attrition portion of on-line instruction could be a huge challenge. Keeping track of each student is imperative in attaining and maintaining a relationship with each one individually in order to foster each student to "want" to participate. Encouragement and communication are KEY!!!
E
Hi Rodney, for us it is usually when a student talk to their counselor and finds out that they can't get their money back on the course, so they decide that they are going to "catch up". Tina
It can be very difficult to play "catch up" in an very short class. I also teach five week classes and I worry about students that miss participating during the first week. It really becomes an issue of priorities and determining whether or not this is something they simply want to accomplish.
Thanks,
Rodney
I agree. I have students that go weeks on end without responding and the decide to knock down my door during the last week of class. I had a previous student say that her graduation coach mentioned she would not complete my class because she had submitted too few assignments. At that point, I began receiving all kinds of emails asking for homework status and "badgering" me to be extremely prompt with my grading.
An delay on your part does not necessary necessitate an emergency on mine...
Thanks,
Rodney
Yes, it is hard for a student to ignore you when you are standing right in front of them :-)
One of the biggest problems I have faced is that it is easier for a student to ignore you online. If they are in the same building as you are for classes, you can track them down if they are not attending. In an online class, you have to rely on messages through the platform or emails, both of which are fairly easy for a student to ignore.
A class that is only five weeks long would be very hard to catch up on after missing one week. In comparison, the classes I teach are 12 weeks long, so it is much easier to catch up after only missing one week.
Your right William, if the student does not submit their first couple of assignments, then they will end up dropping the class or just accept the "F" at the end of the session. Sometimes these students take on more than they can handle.
you might be right Beth but since i started online, I know after the first week if a student hasn't submitted anything and therefore probably never will. I have had a few students on ground that started a week late and caught up though I have not experienced that yet online. This could also be due to the fact that online classes are only 5 weeks.
I think it takes commitment and discipline for students to attend online or residential school. If a student isn't committed to being successful in school, it is highly unlikely they will be successful.
It takes more than time, it takes a commitment and discipline from the student to attend an online school.
That is so true Robert, I try to communicate with students who are not submitting assignments and tell them to contact me if they need help and they never bother to communicate with me. I explain to them after a certain number of days I will no longer accept the assignment and I still get no responses from them. The students are adults with other responsibilities but they must also take responsibility for their education.
The online learning environment creates a number of difficulties for instructors trying to reduce the attrition of students. There are a limited number communication avenues available and each is dependent upon the student logging into the virtual campus. In my experience, there are some students that simply decide to quit and stop logging onto the campus. At this point, there is little that an instructor can do to prevent attrition.
That is a great tip Nitin. Thanks for sharing it with the group.
I make myself available by email, IM and phone to address student concerns. So I am 'virtually' always available. I think that helps retain students in the class also because their concerns get addressed very quickly and they get help in a timely manner.
The students should realize in the real business world deadlines must be met or they might lose their jobs.
It is always a challenge to walk the line of being an accomodating, supportive instructor but at the same also teaching students the importance of meeting deadlines.
Being an online student does require self-discipline, which is something (as you point out in your post) that some students end up learning the hard way. Thanks for your comments Ruben.
