What suggests do you have to connect with students who do not communicate well?  It is obvious that retention is crucial in education, and it seems with each new class of students, you get one or two who are very difficult to connect with. 

I agree that retention of students is very crucial, we are a Team Oriented Institution and if we cannot maintain from start to finish the retention-attention of our students we not only "Failed Them" but "WE FAILED AS A TEAM"!! When this happens then the "INSTITUTION FAILED". Our students count on us to be their mentors, sometimes in alot of aspects of their lives in and out of the class atmosphere, they set goals and we need that retention-attention to work across the board to help them achieve "The Goal".

Stacey Lester

Without establishing a good connection, initially with the student, retention then becomes very challenging. In my experience, I find myself having to encourage a lot of my students as they do not have the coping skills necessary to succeed.  Every week, I send encouraging announcements and e-mails to help stay connected with the students because I teach 100% online.  The school does a good job with their retention efforts; I just wanted to focus on what I've done to assist in this manner.

Thanks!

I agree, connecting with students to let them now we are there is the most important line of defense against students withdrawal.

It is within our college right now, that we are having issue with retention. I feel that retention efforts need to be everyone's responsibility. We need to further educate all members of our staff in order for them to understand the importance of constant communication in order to better our students and make sure they understand that we are here to support them and help them along their way. Without having some sort of guidelines and communication among our entire faculty/staff, we are failing in our efforts and our retention will further crumble and we will not be helping anybody.