Kyle Smith

I have been using this since day 1. At the start of every class I have each person including my old students explain what brought them here. This is a chance to listen and engage our students. It is the key to retention and building the support system.

It is very important to remind the students about why they came here in the first place. I like to "Engage" the students and remind them to keep your eyes on there goals. If we all get to know each and every student, we can sail to attrition of 100%. With these tools the students feel a part of a team or "family". Once we establish that support system our retention is untouchable.

If you engage each of the students and make your rounds daily, you will see a major difference in retention. I have seen outstanding numbers since I have used this tool. Always give 110%, never give up.

It is very important to work as a team and maintain good communication to aid in retention. If the whole team is not on the same page we will fail in every area. The whole goal is to communicate and support the faculty in order to feel there is a team.

Everyday I take 5 minutes to motivate the class and share some type of positive reinforcement with them. This leads to major productivity.

On the first day of class as an ice breaker I have each individual explain about why they chose the medical field and what are there short and long term goals? These are great points to aid in painting a future for motivation.

Little things like leadership roles in the class are amazing retention tools. At times even if you have established your leadership roles you can seek out the troubled students and give them some type of role to aid in motivation. I feel the teamwork and leadership roles = outstanding retention.

I think alot of this in my opinion is common sense. I feel it is important to make sure our bosses have the right background to be able to lead by example.

I found out if we give a compliment to those who are stuggling in the class it makes are job alot easier. Slowly these individuals come out of there shells and get motivated from our daily or weekly positive reinforcement. Soon some of these individuals even become class leaders. I have found in my medical profession that giving leadership positioins in class leaves room for friendly competition and before you know it everyone is on board to grasp one of these positions. I always say give 110% and any constructive criticism only builds character!

Always have many forms of content for all various learning styles.