talk with the student when you have the opportunity. Call them by name. Ask the student how they are doing. Even call the student Mr. or Ms. and their first name. Respect to the students goes further than, negative communication. Never turn your back on the student or walk away whenthey are speaking. Face-to-face communication is the best way to get their attention and obtain their respect for you.

Students as well as the Instructors have outside problems. We as instructors cannot bring those propblems to the classroom, nor do we want to. The students will not concentrate or dio well when they have other issues on their minds. We as Instructors need to help them through these times and find a way to keep them in school.

The first or second of class, I have the students write down their short and long term goals. Than we stick them to the inside of their textbooks. I want the students to see these goals every time they open their books. This will give them the incentive to continue.

I like for students to work together on projects of the objectives for that day. Students have many ideas and like to tell the other students about them. learning is not just from the Instructors. I monitor the projects and make sure everyone is participating.

I am a Program Chair in Online Program. I enjoy a good relationship with Admissions. Without violating compliance, what can I do to impove the quality of our relationship with Admissions even further.

Are retention and education enemies? The simple answer is no. Retention is a product of quality education. I have a recurring nightmare in where a teacher grants grades based upon effort rather than production. To make matters entirely more scary, the towns people are storming room teaching across the hall because the monster teaching that class allowed some of his students to fail. Just for sake of being lonely, I hope there are others out there who share in my horror. To be fair, I have never heard anyone on this site state that we need to lower standards to improve retention; however, I'm not seeing anyone say that standards of quality education cannot be sacrificed to the gods of retention. To me, that is a message that should be repeated with every discussion on retention. To be unfair, the found that the question in the quiz regarding a positive correlation between retention and how well someone is doing in the class to show, at minimum, a structural bias toward retention. I grant considerable benefit when doubting that it was instrumental. The truth in education is that quality and retention can be friends when we examine why we teach. That is an important question, and one that impacts retention far more than any other question out there. A lot of teachers know what they teach and some even know how to go about doing it. The teachers that I remember, admire, and still look up to are the ones that knew why they were teaching in addition to the how and what. It is the why that drives us to push our students beyond where they thought it possible to go. It is the why that demands we be compassionate while still holding students accountable to the highest quality of work. It is the why that encourages us to work far beyond our pay and be there for students. Trust me, as a sociolgy teacher, I understand the importance of socialization to any new environment, but I see that as just one of the functions of a quality education. Part of college should be the education of how to succeed in college, but success cannot be measured by retention alone because it is a function of education, not the other way around.

yes I do believe that first impressions are the most important. but its awful hard to recover when admin reps tell prospective students one thing and then the students find out that it doesn't happen that way. Good reason to be on the same page from the front office to the lab floor. No misconceptions of what they will be doing and or recieving

School uniforms /dress code we start in the class room prepping our students for the work place, coaching and reminding them to be professionals at all times.

We have various student activities at our campus. We have a student bike show with various vendors.Since it is during Daytona bike week, several out-of-state freinds and relatives attend this event with our students. We have open houses with students invited to attend. We have as many student oriented functions as possible.

Prompt service is something that everyone is looking for regardless of the institution .We need to have a system in place so that students are not given the run around and make the overall experience of the student a good one.

Working in both in-seat and on-line schools, I have found that intervention can be very difficult in the virtual world. When you’re in an in-seat school, you can go get your student in a class or see them in the hall to have a conversation with them. In the virtual school, you have to try to initiate a conversation by trying to reach them by phone or email. When you do get them on the phone, in can be difficult to find out if there is anything going on. What kind of intervention strategies has worked for you in the on-line environment?

I once taught at an institution that gave rewards to faculty who had the highest rate of retention for each quarter. I felt this was unfair because teachers who taught a class of 30 and had 1 student leave at the end of the quarter would have a higher percentage than one who had 5 students and lost 1. I felt that those who taught higher level courses with smaller class sizes were unfairly kept out of this reward system. Have any of you run into this. How would you deal with this issue.

I had not known these intervention techniques before. What is your favorite intervention technique that may not have been listed here?

It is true that certain life events cannot be planned for but I think that part of the benefit of a higher education is learning coping strategies for live stressors. What are some coping strategies that you have learned?

Should traditional colleges versus career colleges have different retention criteria?

Many times an adult learner has ingrained habits that are not the best for learning. What is good good approach to help them change.

I enjoyed this discussion of accountability. It really does encompass much more than just a students final grade - timeliness of completing assignments, openness to feedback, etc.

In my prior teaching life I worked in the dog eat dog world of business. I never want to go back to that, everything we are asked to do is to benefit the student. Jennifer

This can be done by a simple smile. Many students the only time they get recognition is while at school. Jennifer

Our business as online instructors will continue to evolve. I am completing my dissertation work on what students expect from online, traditional and weekend learning formats. Jennifer