Many of our students are career changers so the decision to return to school is a tough one. Many students have regular work schedules and families and all of these factors have to be taken into consideration when deciding to enroll. The state of the economy is another factor to consider, and some feel there may be no where else to turn than to another career.

In this dificult economic times; more and more people are changing careers to better their future..... Is this just a trend or the future??

should be done on the first day of class as black and white as possible

Every first day of our 3 week rotations we review all of the rules and guidelines for the class. if a student misses first day they miss alot of information. So i try to get the missing guy up to speed when they finally show up.

I let the students know it is ok to make mistakes.Just dont let them beat you up from them but learn from them.Then as class continues i will bring up mistakes i made in the field that pertain to what we are learning that day.

most retention issues can be affected by instructor involvement and correcting problems early on.

be patient when dealing with students about intervention, get to the heart of the issue without being threatening or crowding

some stress is normal, teach students how to deal with it and use it in a positive manor.

keep students interest andretention will stay to a min. outside the normal reasons.

Many instructors like to incorporate humor into there classroom environment. Is humor a good or bad tool to use in a classroom environment? What is enough and what is too much?

Does anyone have good practices for changing student behavior or attitudes. We have many students who grew up in a culture that is truly not acceptable in society or the work place. Many have criminal backgrounds or grew up in the streets with no parential guidance or support. They feel their actions and behavior is acceptable because that's all they know. It's hard for faculty at times to relate to the lifestyle that many of our students come from.

How do you help individuals know if this is the correct time in their life to be in school. Many of our students attend school, homeless, no job, no tranportation, single parent and some all of the above. Is this the right time to invest alot of money in school and potentially not be successful and encure unwanted debt.

I treat my students in the same way I treat my own kids. I do not do anything differant, I think before I speak and treat each situation as it comes about.

It is very importance to cover whatthe learning objectives are as many time what the student thinks he needs to learn is different than what the job requires.

I believe we need to help prepare the student more before they start class. Orientation is too late to find out what the schools policies are, to find a job and a place to live. We are working to be more pro-active 6 months out to educate the new student about the life skills needed to be successful as a student. They need to be aware of the schools polices, job opportunities, housing and budget needs. The future student would benifit from a checklist of items to make their transition into school life more positive. This early attention will result in a positive way for future retention.

I think that our admissions department could benefit from this lesson. Everything makes sense. I feel that my companies admissions department is just pushing students into the program and because of that we have a large# of students that do not complete. I will try to add some of these techniques into my teaching

Improving your placement program at your school can be very effective if the students are inform or introduce from the very start date , and true their time during school about their future into the real world .(what to expect after you are finish with your school)

An effective and yet successful plan of retention would be to have always high end activities like clubs, guess speaker, outdoor events,open labs, field trips, demonstrations etc. Not just only for freshman's but all student body ,faculty and staff.

Of all the parts involved in student retention such as: student involvement in campus activities, career planning so that students will have clear career plans, to quality orientation programs Is there a way to measure which is the greater contributor to retention efforts?

One thing I believe always helps with retention is being able to provide students with a sense of belonging in their chosen school. In High School, students have a strong sense of ownership and belonging. The schools have school colors. There are school sports teams. Clubs and other organizations provide students with a way to represent their school, and feel that they are represented by their school. Most public or "land-grant" universities have fraternities and sororities. They have sports teams which compete nationwide and provide the students with an opportunity to show pride in their school at sporting events, or fraternity/sorority meetings. Unfortunately, with most private colleges it is very difficult to take advantage of these types of opportunities. Private colleges don't have dormatories or fraternities/sororities. These types of schools don't have the ability to sponsor sports teams on the scale that public universities do. Private colleges are typically focused solely on the education they provide. This is not a bad thing, as these schools understand that the students who attend private colleges are typically there for that very reason. These students are not usually there for sports or fraternities. They are there to get through school, graduate, get the degree, and begin their careers. However, if a private college can determine a way to create a similar sense of pride, and a sense of belonging in the culture of the college, then this could go a long way in improving the retention of the school's students. Stephen Lee Campbell