For me the one thing I have feared is calling the students to ask them how I can help or find out why they missed class. This was pushed on me recently and I found it was not that bad and thus helped one student realize that she had a test in the next class.
email is good, but I think phone is more personal and shows that you are committed to help that student, to keep them in class.
Better assessment of students to determine if they are at risk of withdrawing from program.
Help increase their confidence level when practicing clinical skill by encouraging them to keep going, if they make a mistake help them resolve it so they see is not about the mistake is what you do if you make one.
Be like a role model for them.
The first thing I will do that will improve retention is greet every student I see when I walk into the school on my way to class. I do my best to stay connected to the students whom I have already been a instructor for and I attempt to make all the other students who I have not yet had in class feel welcome in the school.
The second act will be volunteering as a tasting judge for a student culinary competition, demonstrating my commitment to their continuing culinary education.
The third thing I will do will be to make contact with each student every day who is in or missing from my class.
i have mad it my busness to go class to class on a daily basis and ask all the instructors who is absent, and if they know why? i will also hold the instructors accountable by getting feed back from them at the end of every shift on absent students and if they done thier part by calling, then i will call, and if no answer go and find in the cevue, to see if thier is anouther # to call and just make a brief call and ask them how are they doing and if thier is any thing we can do to make sure they do not miss any more days of school or if thier out sick did they call thier instructor to see what was misses and give them an opportunity to make it up if necesary.
3 specific steps I plan to take within the next 30 days to improve retention at my institution are:
1. Survey students and follow up with vertical probe. I think this will be helpful in improving retention.
2. I would also like to recommend a suggestion box for student's to be able to voice opinions.
3. We have "pot luck's" which student's love and it is a great time to be able to sit with students and talk. I haven’t done this in a while but I will start again. It helps build a connection for them to feel comfortable but yet still remains a professional atmosphere.
1. Make them feel important as too they are doing something that will benefit their life.
2. Get monthly statistics as too why retention could be a problem.
3. Go outside the box and use other instructors ideas on how to improve the retention in your program.
Being more understanding of my students struggles.
Offering solutions for thier struggles.
Telling them what is important to worry about and what is not.
I will send out a mass e mail periodically to connect with students and let them know I am there if they are struggling. I will call stdents as soon as possible if they are absent and have not notified me. I will offer an ongoing lab on Fridays to practice/addres any student issues in a less formal manner;this will give students a chance to vent frustrations and make suggestions.
Campus Vue has been very effective in monitoring students at risk for dropping.
Provide students with tutoring support if they are having trouble with a certain skill, make each student feel supported in their decisions regarding school and provide guidance, and keep daily classroom moral high in spirit, and help all to maintain a positive attitude.
Meet with students, one on one, so they become more comfortable with me and get to know them sooner.
Keep them aware of there progress in class at the end of each week.
Develop and discuss my wanting them to succeed.
1. Giving my new students a questionaire on first day of class I developed to help me get to know them a little more.
2. Continue calling my students when absent.
3. Telling students I am available and giving them my set time for discussions and talking if they need.
Help the students stay focused on the end results after they graduate. Not just getting a job but making it a career.
Discussing the problems that come up during the classes.
Letting them know not to take things so personal and take one day at a time.
The three specific steps that I will take to improve student retention are:
1. Email any student that is falling behind / seems to be disinterested in participation of class actives and email all students about upcoming events / assignments.
2. Review all assignments for specific issues and provide a link to specific resources that will help them.
3. Demonstrate enthusiasm for the course material.
In addition to the three steps listed above, I will also demonstrate areas of the campus where students can connect to other students with similar interests.
Develop and follow a clear, easy to understand syllabus for each of my classes (many instuctors pass them out but never follow them), research life/career appropriate connections for each topic, find ways to make classes fun.
To improve retention at our institution we will implement the following:
Include in staff and faculty meetings and item regarding the resources we have available for the students, how they are helpful in the students’ retention. Also include them in our monthly news letter that reaches not only staff, faculty but the students.
Start training all staff and Faculty to engaging in a retention improvement plan.
As an early intervention practice, implement the survey method and the vertical probe in our approach to the students, especially when they come with issues and complaints regarding their class and instructor.
All of these keeping in mind “the student success†as a measure of the “Institutional successâ€
1. Improve communication between Student Services and Instructors in order to catch at risk students even sooner.
2. Improve communication between staff and students through newsletters, bulletin boards, orientation packets, etc.
3. Implement more activities (cook outs, contests, etc.), more field trips and seminars that remind them why they are here and what their goals are.
For schools and colleges that have regularly scheduled in-service programs. It's a great idea to make retention. One of these topics. S an even better idea to scour the nation and look to those schools that boast a very high retention rate and possibly bring in one of their members of the institution to address the faculty as well as the administrators or even better yet, the entire staff of the institution on how they have managed to maintain such a high retention rate.
Placing the burden of retention solely on faculty is a very regular, but yet unfair practice of many schools, and within our nation. If we look abroad to other schools and what they do about retention, you'll quickly find out that retention is addressed by all individuals at the particular college or university. It then becomes everyone's responsibility to take time out to show a particular student of the way to a particular building. We may not view this as an important task, but yet if you take it from the student perspective. Finding out where to go for their first class or where to go if they have a question or problem is very important for them to get an immediate answer
Having a pep rally for instructors is a fantastic idea. The . The objective of pep rally is to bring about a level of excitement on a particular topic. If we have a pep rally with their instructors, that's designed to generate enthusiasm for success in the classroom as an example, this should, by its very nature carryforward to the student body. Why not have a pep rally for the students to gain an overall excitement for the institution or the particular degree program that they're in. Having students participate actively in career fairs for their particular discipline automatically brings about a high level of enthusiasm and a general rationale for remaining within the program.
