I believe that retention is the responsibility of each and every faculty member. We must make our syllabus understandable and our expectations very clear, so that each and every student is aware of what is expected in a course. They must also understand the grading practice and what to do in case they need assistance. When we are upfront with our students, that is an aide in retention.

Our campus does not need anything to improve the school involvemet/activities! We do everything from Easter Egg hunts, to Hot cocoa and cookies in the winter months, to Halloween booths from each department and the students go to each, gather candy, and vote on the best booth! Once again, I will say it....We are blessed to have such a great team of workers! Dr. Eve

Orientation at our campus is well planned and has a high attendance of new students. I don't see how anything could be improved, other than maybe having a graduate speak to the students. Also, a power point of students in the classrooms would provide first hand observation of what to expect once they are enrolled! Dr. Eve

A method I have been using for a while to break the ice within the group and to allow students to get to know each other, is have each student introduce him/herself to the class and express their expectations about the class or why they are there. This allows students to relate to one another when it comes to their goals and expectations, and any fears/doubts they may have about the class. As students start opening up about their backgrounds and goals, others start to follow and new friends/colleages are created during this 1st hour of class. They come to class the second day knowing that everyone in class is and feels just like them, knowing that they already know people in the class they can relate to and look forward to seeing again.

What is your most successful intervention techniques to help a student open up in talking about the issues that he/she is facing?

Some students that miss the first day do not realize how much they miss and never really catch up.

First impressions are extremely important to student expectations. A realistic and concise review of any program is important.

What is your best practice to help a student to deal with stress?

One of the way to help students who take longer to grasp the subject/content is to team them up with student leaders that have been detected among the class students. They become mentor and it creates a link for the students that have some difficulty to not only refer to the instructor but also have the opportunity to search help among the student leader/mentor.

Be involed,with student needs, lead the student to solutions, and options. Have them to acheve ther goals.. they respect that..

Hello, Retention is the responsibility of all parties. The commitment that the student see from their instructor helps to set a foundation for learning.

Hello, We all need help. The student is in a new environment, often this means new challeges and concerns. We a instructors can help.

Hello, Others factors can interfer with learning and student sucess, it is our goal as effective educators to help eleviate some of the problems.

Hello, Students make sacrifices to go to school, all of these play a role in a students finishing school. We as educators help to navigate the challenges students face.

Soon our Elective program will be implementing an orientation for incoming students. I believe that during an orientation students should not only receive all the information about the institution and the program they're signing for, but also what to expect from the program in terms of commitment, homework, and class/lab work. Even though from a marketing point of view this might deter some students from taking the program, I believe it is a more realistic approach and it will help the program by "filtering in" those students who are truly interested and will be successful.

When I have student(s) that need mentoring/tutoring I will use one of his fellow student(s) that is already aware of his needs and the mentoring/tutoring student will also benefit from the additional training he receives when helping mentor/tutoring. The added benefit to my class is I have a better retention.

I learned alot about myself in this module. But how do we get the student to open up to us before all of this happens. The student who falls in these catagories are not the ones who freely open up to us. I have several students who are in the catagory "too little to late" and it breaks my heart. Maybe I will find this answer later on?

Every day, especially in the first week of class, we discuss in detail what is expected in the class and how the class went. What went very well and what could be improved the next day as far as work habits and execution of cooking techniques. I also stress that it's okay to make mistakes and that it is an important part of the learning process. I find students get down on themselves and can be self-discouraging.

I have my students tell the clas their favorite restaurants, foods, and types of cuisines. Some of them have similar likes and dislikes and it gets them engaged with each other and the topic of food. This is especially important on their first day when they don't know anyone and make a connection to another individual in the class as well as the instructor.

One of the things I like to do during orientation is to have the students interview each other and share their dreams and aspirations with each other. They then share them with the class to see how they have similiar or differing goals. This gets them excited and reinforcing their decision to attend culinary school.