Get Your Students Hired
We have a department called Student Services and each student is assigned to a person tracks their academic progress. When the student is determined to be AT RISK by the instructor they begin the intervention process with the tudent by contacing them. The instructor gives this counselor the information (prework) to start the process. The counselor follows the guidelines as set forward by the 8 steps of intervention to provide the student with options to assit the student. The college also has outside services that are provided to the student if the issues go beyond what the counselor can provide to the student.
We do have student Academic Advisee, that help touch base on the termly basis to assure the student is doing good. But sometime instructor don't have much time to chased them around, from class to class.
We have a Student Services Director, and we as Instructors have advicees.
This is great for students because they see they have support and they can be heared.
Is there a fix for this? Who should take the lead in developing a better system and how will it be implemented?
Do the Registrar, Exec Chef and President meet weekly with every faculty member? How long do these meetings last?
Who's responsible for completing the action plan?
Has this been effective in improving retention?
What sort of issues are being reported through this system? Is it computer based or paper/pencil?
How do you assure that all instructors are using the system in a consistent manner?
We could have started to get to know the students better from the beginning of their time with us so that we could have helped address issues such as child care, personal problems, scheduling conflicts relating to jobs and the School and transportation dilemmas.
We have weekly meeting with the Registrar, Exec Chef, and President. To discuss students who are sap, absentee and other problems my class might be having. After we formulate a plan to help those in need and get them back on course.
We have a system in which instructors report daily the issues within their classes. This allows the administration to intervene and help the situation.
Also, instructors are very good at referring the student to the administration when they identify a potential problem.
I really appreciate the frequent and on-going job fairs sponsored by the Career Services department. The job fairs assist students in finding employment that is meaningful and rewarding. This strategy prevents students from withdrawing from school.
Nathan, please share more about your surveying procedure? Is this something you do verbally by asking for a show of hands or do you pass out a physical survey? What sort of questions do you ask?
Does the Student Success Director teach an actual class? If so, who takes it and what's covered?
More and more colleges are including some sort of transition skills course within their curriculum to teach learning skills, time/money/stress management, etc.
In our college each student has an advisor to keep in touch on a weekly base to communicate events, issues, success stories. This process help the student to contact his advisor in case he needs it. Goos relatioship and trust are critical to avoid Academic erosion.
This may not be too easy a task to accomplish, but I believe in giving individual attention to every student in your classroom, specifically, when you have a classroom of 30+; however, I agree with the idea that attention is key to retention. I try to interact with as many students as possible, manytimes this requires brief surveying of the class to see where my attention will be most beneficial, and work my way down from there.
Our institution has a Student Success Director that both teaches and counsels students. We have different forms for letting her know about different issues to include attendance, academics, financial and many others.
Our institution is attendance driven. So when a student starts missing time he/she is warned about how much time they have missed. Stagnation is not a problem usually. That's primarily do to our classes only being 3 weeks long.
Do you think you see more students for than some of your colleagues because of your compassionate approach?
Does the student success instructor have other subject responsibilities? How does this differ from a student services person?
How is their performance evaluated?
I too, work very hard to learn all of my students names in the first week of class. Spending the time to learn their names and be able to acknowledge them by name. I feel this helps create a better bond between the student and me, and in turn helps with student retention.
Also, by working to get to know them one on one, it helps them open up, which gives me the opportunity to direct them to help faster, if needed. Reducing their stress, makes for a better student and helps keep them in class.