In addition to following up regulary and immediately on students who are absent, struggling or clearly at risk, we focus on positive reinforcement and attention for successful students with awards, certficates, special events, metoring opportunities and school wide recognition.
Great idea, David. Your peers should benefit from this strategy.
At the end of every semester I attempt to have the instructors have a one on one meeting with all of their students just for positive reinforcement leading in to the next semester
These are tried and true strategies, David. Please keep doing them.
What are some other things you do specifically in your classroom to show that you are paying attention?
We call students who are absent and provide quick feedback on test results etc... We also quickly learn the names of our students.
My students have the knak of asking me qwestions to see if I know the answer to there qwestion. When these qwestions come up, I take the time to explain in a manner that they will understand.(in there terminknolagy in other words). In some cases I have to expain in two parts.
Thank, Rosa.
What types of things are you learning in your sensitivity training?
There is always room for improvement. Our school is training all their personnel in sensibility training, trying to bring down to earth every employee-even custodial and security- to let every single person knows that we care.
We hold daily SOS meetings (Save our Students) to discuss at-risk students (attendance, grades, hardships). All program directors, school administrators and at least one person representing each department attend. We share struggles we encounter when contacting students, and departments work together to assist the efforts in reaching out to students. This also gives us a forum to share successes.
In an online environment, the attention starts with the instructor. I email the student once I notice the lack of attendance (i.e., logging into the classroom), participation and/or submitted assignments. My email conveys a strong message of concern to the student. I ask how I can help them get back on track with their missing work. If I do not get a response within 2 days of my email, I send out another one, but this time, I CC their student advisor on the email. For the most part, the instructors are strongly encouraged to keep contacting students, while they remain on our roster. Advisors will eventually contact the students via telephone, on our behalf.
Thank you, Gina.
These are all good things. Please be sure your campus pays attention to the students who are neither the most high achieving nor the students "in trouble." Too often, school forget about the students in the middle.
We have perfect attendance awards each module, as well as 4.0 GPA, take photos, give them gifts and a certificate of achievement in front of their peers. Go into each module each new start with the entire administrative staff, to re-intriduce ourselves and strike up conversations with them as they matriculate through their program. Instructos call absent students, we hand out report cards every week so the students can be proactive and see how they are going grade wise and attendance wise. Weekly Change of Status Meetings identify those students slipping and meetings are held with those students, advising notes taken and copy given to the student. Then weekly follow up is necessary to ensure success and change needed. All staff participate in the Change of Status Meetings, therefore all departments know the students in toruble and they can be proactive in assisting them. Also, while students are on break staff strike up conversations and engage students.
These are all solid approaches, Michael. Thanks for sharing.
Weekly meetings occur with each instructor so that the instructors can report which students are at risk. We have contests which result in Chef Instructors cooking meals for the classes with the best attendance record. also one on one meetings with high risk students and the director of education also are part of the process
Thank you, Dennis. What are some things you do for the students who are performing at or above standard to ensure that they continue on the correct path?
You make a good point here, Rocco. The most neglected students in a school ted to be the "B" students who come to class regularly anddo what we expect them to do.
Great schools find ways to consciously catch thes students doing something good and recognize them for it.
In reading the first part of this training I was internally acknowledging that we do everything to retain our students that was suggested but I feel we can always do more. We encourage faculty to make one-on-one contact with the students, call them when they are absent and email the Academics team to share information about a student so that Student Services can reach out to assist. We also have begun to build a bigger community by having a designated student lounge and gathering area. We also have regularly scheduled Student Appreciation Days where we feed students for free.
The challenge with attention=retention model is that we sometimes give most of our attention to the at-risk students and neglect those who are going through school without any struggles.
Thank you, Cynthia.
It is disappointing when we work with a student for quite a while, see some real progress, and than find that the student simply disappeared. We cannot get through to every student, nor will we always know why a student opts out of the program. If you are confident that you did all you could to help a student, (and in this case it seems like you did), you should not feel you let the student down.
Your positive influence may yield the results you hoped for at a later date. The student knows what you did for him.
Thank you, Dennis.
What are some ways your team "pays attention" to those who are doing well?
It is kinda of disappointing when you have paid attention to a student and they still drop from the program. I had a student who I would monitor and watched his grades. I asked him if he need tutoring, he went to tutoring and was very grateful. He said he was able to pick up the concepts a lot better. I made it a habit to check up on him and see how he was progressing. He was doing good, not great but he had both the attendance and academics. Then one day he just stopped showing up. I called his home and even his family was surprised that he stopped attending.
