Our institution has a Student Success Director that both teaches and counsels students. We have different forms for letting her know about different issues to include attendance, academics, financial and many others.
This may not be too easy a task to accomplish, but I believe in giving individual attention to every student in your classroom, specifically, when you have a classroom of 30+; however, I agree with the idea that attention is key to retention. I try to interact with as many students as possible, manytimes this requires brief surveying of the class to see where my attention will be most beneficial, and work my way down from there.
In our college each student has an advisor to keep in touch on a weekly base to communicate events, issues, success stories. This process help the student to contact his advisor in case he needs it. Goos relatioship and trust are critical to avoid Academic erosion.
Does the Student Success Director teach an actual class? If so, who takes it and what's covered?
More and more colleges are including some sort of transition skills course within their curriculum to teach learning skills, time/money/stress management, etc.
Nathan, please share more about your surveying procedure? Is this something you do verbally by asking for a show of hands or do you pass out a physical survey? What sort of questions do you ask?
Who initiates this weekly contact? The student or the advisor? Does this really happen?
I really appreciate the frequent and on-going job fairs sponsored by the Career Services department. The job fairs assist students in finding employment that is meaningful and rewarding. This strategy prevents students from withdrawing from school.
We have a system in which instructors report daily the issues within their classes. This allows the administration to intervene and help the situation.
Also, instructors are very good at referring the student to the administration when they identify a potential problem.
We have weekly meeting with the Registrar, Exec Chef, and President. To discuss students who are sap, absentee and other problems my class might be having. After we formulate a plan to help those in need and get them back on course.
We could have started to get to know the students better from the beginning of their time with us so that we could have helped address issues such as child care, personal problems, scheduling conflicts relating to jobs and the School and transportation dilemmas.
What sort of issues are being reported through this system? Is it computer based or paper/pencil?
How do you assure that all instructors are using the system in a consistent manner?
Do the Registrar, Exec Chef and President meet weekly with every faculty member? How long do these meetings last?
Who's responsible for completing the action plan?
Has this been effective in improving retention?
Is there a fix for this? Who should take the lead in developing a better system and how will it be implemented?
We have a Student Services Director, and we as Instructors have advicees.
This is great for students because they see they have support and they can be heared.
We do have student Academic Advisee, that help touch base on the termly basis to assure the student is doing good. But sometime instructor don't have much time to chased them around, from class to class.
We have a department called Student Services and each student is assigned to a person tracks their academic progress. When the student is determined to be AT RISK by the instructor they begin the intervention process with the tudent by contacing them. The instructor gives this counselor the information (prework) to start the process. The counselor follows the guidelines as set forward by the 8 steps of intervention to provide the student with options to assit the student. The college also has outside services that are provided to the student if the issues go beyond what the counselor can provide to the student.
We start off immediately with attendance and call the students as soon as they miss 1 day. We also frame our messages so that the students feel a real concern for them rather than just doing what we are required. For example, we say, "I missed you in class today and I am concerned about you. Is everything OK?" I get many students to return my calls using this method and they often thank me for calling them. This also works because it is easy for the students to wake up and say, "I missed yesterday, I could miss today." But when you call them and they know that you expect them (or they promised you) to be in school, they are more likely to attend.
What role does your Student Services Director perform? Is he/she focused on support services or social activities? How often do advisor make referrals to this person?
Are you expected to submit periodic reports of meetings with your advisees? It sounds like your system is a bit loose and informal. Does it meet your students' needs?
Sounds like a well thought process, Dan. What sort of outside services are available and how often are they used? Are these typically professional counselors or more related to social services like housing and transportation?
