Hi, A lot of students work, have families and go to school. Exausted. How can we help

Hi, How can you make it interesting day after day? It is sorta like how do you keep your kids at home fed an interesting and cheap meal every day. Mark

Idea for recognizing ESOL Students will rise to the level of expectation. Our students need to feel that they are succeeding. ESOL students cannot compete with main stream students; however they can compete among each other. We need advisers for ESOL students by students and faculty that understand the students plight.

Although retention is extremly inportant; however, not all students respond to the same intervention. Learing support and ESOL students will need mentors to help them succeed. An ESOL advicer who would be responsible for the retention of these kinds of these students. Students will succeed with accomendations.

Many teachers will be getting ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Language) students in their classes. These students need specific strategies to succeed. I have a master's degree and 30 years of experience in this area. I would be happy to train instructors on the proper procedure to help retain ESOL students. Would you be interested in this kind of training? Retention is very important for our institution. We need to reach out to these students.

I particularly liked the statement in the module that said it is just as important to practice the topics in the workforce as I totally agree staff need to be trained and managers need to engage with them to ensure they do not want to quit.

In our school we only have each group for 15 days. That makes it hard to get involved with anything but delivering the material in class. a lot of times I really don't get to know much about the student until the end of the session. This can make harder to have a positive impact on retention

I teach English for Speakers of other languages. Not only are these students trying to master a new language, they are new Americans that are struggling at home. A guidebook in Spanish and English (since all ESL students are Spanish speaking)I believe will save undue frustration for these students. Many new enrollees are so overwhelmed by all the new information, in a new language, surroundings, and people that they don't really internalize the list. When it comes time to seek help they don't remember who, where, or how to get it. Human nature provides all the excuses they need to put off asking – frequently until it's too late. Student Mentors can assist students in knowing what resources are available.(Instructors as councilors puts a large strain on the teachers who are very busy and may miss a signal.

it's nice to have a better knowledge of how to measure retention.

Mentoring and tudoring are great ways to assist some students over a hurdle, but how do some of you handle the ones that do not have the basic knowledge of the topic required to even be in your class? When you realize they have somehow made it to you but they are completly lost....what do you do? What about many students seeking your help at the same time, not another tudor, but you. I teach a course that is very advanced, and some students are afraid to ask questions, this sometimes leads to a "Can I talk to you after class" line of students seeking private help from me. This can be overwhelming to say the least. What are some ways you would suggest handling these types of situations?

It is very hard to retain students when they arrive with alot of personal issues. Like no money, homeless, criminal backgrounds, no job, no food to eat. What practices are there for students who arrive with these situations and think they can also handle school and studying on top of these personal issues?

Being in a culinary student we begin discussing externship with students on day on and encouraging them to get a job in the industry. This is apart of their vision and goals during school. Does anyone have any advise on getting students or motivating students to secure externship sites early before their final six weeks.

Some students feel because they are customers and paying for an education they deserve to do what they want. Being a culinary school how do you get students to understand that they are in college for an education and not just for free meals. They think because they are paying for college they should be allowed to eat what they want.

We use many of the techniques described especially making phone calls and following up on our students. What is the best practice for getting correct or accurate phone numbers. Our students appear to change phone numbers constantly and when you call they no longer work. This is very frustrating.

I realize that not all students have the stomach for it, I being one, but I have seen others get a great deal out of student created study groups. I could not encourage this extra-classroom activity enough. It provides support amoung the students and a focal point on the substantive learning process.

Great module, if nothing more than, to remind me that should I tread beyond the subject matter of the class too far I am out of my league and could cause greater damage than the student at first realizes.

It seems incongruous to refer to stress as objective and strain as subjective. It seems too obvious to say that our coping skills differ and are not universal. It is precisely the uniqueness of our coping-skills and our stress which makes this module so helpful and the lesson so challenging; sans the statement that stress is objective.

It seems to me that retention is only possible with one who desires to be retained. It has been my experience that instructors have a better view of a students desire than an admissions representative. Far from a criticism this appears to be a truism. As such, how can one better balance the success anticipated by the admissions representative of a new student with the success (i.e., retention) actually achieved in the classroom.

One of the most important facets in developing a retention program is to hire faculty who are driven to student success.Faculty who are excited to be teaching and working with students who re-enforce how the curricula the students are learning will apply on the job. I also would have a school newsletter written by students. The students will fill out an instructor performance survey and a curriculium relevance survey so we can see if we are meeting the students' needs. To accommondate student success I would use the following: Seminars for study skills, time management, test taking, dealing with anxiety; Appreciation Events; Awards Assemblies; Clubs; activities where faculty and students interact.

Stress is demands placed on a person that require adaptive and coping responses. Some students have to work 40 hours per week, come to school full-time in order to get their loans and/or grants, and still be a parent. We, the faculty need to walk a mile in the students shoes in order to comprehend what each students stressors are.