Retention
How I help with retention, I call all students twice a week to make sure they are still fully excited and still on board to start school.
I teach court reporting. Students tend to get frustrated because progress is very slow at times. I try and mentor each student every day to see where they are and how I can help them. The problems range from transportation to depression. I think just letting them know you care and can help them in the simplest helps tremendously. I also follow-up on the problems on a daily basis.
I am not sure what testing they do before the student enters the college, but I personally ask the students to provide some background information in the first week. I provide them with my personal information in a Welcome Letter to give them a template as to what I am requesting in a forrum in the discussion room. It allows them to introduce themselves to the class and me. Depending on how they write their introduction I can deem some idea of who they are and what type of personality they might be. They can be straight an forward or they can be a smoozer. I have been trained in my past carrer to determine which person wants to be smoozed and which wants to get to the point.
Some online institutions have found personality/temperament profiles to be useful. Typically these are administered during the admissions process, but can provide valuable insights into the student's preferences and preferred method of communication.
For example, some students will just want the facts and don't want to engage in relationship building. Others will need to develop a bond through more extensive exchanges with the instructor and/or their peers. This group enjoys the interaction of a chat room, while the former group is put off by that type of interaction.
Do you have access to any background information about your students? Are they working? What type of job? Why are they enrolled in the course? etc.
Do you have phone contact with your students? This may be another way to get through to them.
Since I am an online instructor. I make contact with my students on a daily basis. But, the issues I have is not being there in person to see how they are reacting to the program and course. As it states in the Module it is important to react to the student's incompatability with the program or the people. In a traditioal setting this might be more apparent to the instructor. It is a hurdle that I have yet to get passed. I have some students walk out of my course so to speak and do not ever find out why. So it become difficult to adjust to something I am not aware why they do not show back up. I leave emails that they do not respond and therefore I have no basis to form a plan to prevent them from leaving.
Is this before or after the student is enrolled? Twice a week is a lot of dialing. How long do the students continue to welcome your calls?
