Faculty Invovlement in Retention
I have great faculty but most do not see the connection between creating an active learning environment and the impact of retention. Meaning, they have a difficult time realizing that if the classroom is not enaging and active, they will lose students. How would you approach "training an old dog new tricks?" Please bare in mind that I am faculty as well but I get the connection :)
I will agree with you it is difficult to get instructors to buy off on the fact that a part of retention really is under their control.
The one thing that comes to my mind is educating them and giving them opportunities for professional development serving to freshen up their presentation techniques. Other then taking courses, maybe sit in on another instructors lesson. Give the faculty opportunities to share their techniques with each other. This can be done during a faculty "In-Service" training. (We have one each quarter.) This will be an easy buy off for instructors who are passionate about teaching.
You may not be able to get them to agree with the basic thought they do have some control over retention but if you can get them to keep their presentation fresh, the results will speak for themselves.
What excellent recommendations! Occasionally, I sense a tiredness in the classroom.....I really think your ideas will bring renewed passion and aid in student retention.
One way would be to have a faculty mentor as our college does. A faculty member who has shown that they get the connection can be a good mentor to other faculty.
Also have a round table or two with faculty. Discuss what you are trying to emphasize and get to the faculty's hands as tools for retention. As faculty come up with ideas to help they will feel more a part of the process and be more receptive to their role in retention.
Lastly if you use such metrics you can also track and show success rates for faculty in their differing classes. If they are getting all kudos in one class perhaps they are also more engaged in that class and the success ratio should reflect that data. You may wish to share that with individual faculty for their review.
Joel--
Great ideas. I especially like the round table with faculty brainstorming and getting ideas from each other. Is this something you do regularly?
Susan
I would not say it is a regular occurrence but rather something done more annually and as needed. However also our Director of Education and Student Services stay in communication with our Faculty weekly to discuss students and any issues that we as a college are facing or that student's are facing that we should action. Its a very fluid and dynamic team. :)
Our instructors are online instructors but they are under contract so I guess it would be a little different for us. But making sure that they are doing their part correctly is what we are currently working on. We have established timelines for our students for when the should be completed with certain sections of their online course and when we as the Career Counselors see that they are getting behind inform the instructors so that they are able to encourage students from their end as well as us so that the student gets the double support.
Many faculty members do have a difficult time understanding how what takes place in the classroom can affect retention. Our colleges have developed training to help instructors better understand how to create an active learning environment and the benefits of doing so. Faculty observations are done at least monthly and instructors are coached on those areas in which they are weak.
Excellent! Faculty development and support is often overlooked and, as you have pointed out, extremely important to the student experience (as well as making faculty feel more confident).
Susan
Money. Our instructors get bonuses when there students graduate.
At our school we have a Manager of Instructional Development. This person is responsible for observing instructors in the classroom setting and then discussing what is being done that is great and pointing out opportunities for improvement. This person is also responsible for the content of our monthly in-services.
Most of our in-service training leads to discussion of how this will improve retention.
Having a robust academic component is very important, and it certainly sounds like you have just that!
What is your policy for contacting students who 'disappear'?...do their instructors contact them?
Susan
Our policy is that the instructors are the frontline to retention. We also have a retention coordinator and her job is to "go above and beyond" to reach these students. She calls and sends emails and letters in hopes of contacting them.
I have a myspace page that I encourage students to participate in. At times I am able to contact a student in crisis via that forum.
We do the brainstorming too and it we find it very effective and helpful!
We start each term with a faculty meeting as we are a small school and half of our instructors are adjunct so we want to make sure everyone is on the same page and let them know if any new policies have been implented.
I think often faculty feel intimidated by the possibilty of being held accountable for retention when they had no control over what a student was told by an admissions rep. Improved relations between the two departments would no doubt improve retension overall.
This is a really interesting question to me because I generally have an opinion on everything. But this stumps me. The correlation between what I do as faculty and student retention, seems so abundantly clear that literally anyone qualified to teach at this level should be able to see it. I am not at all certain that those who do not see the relationship can be persuaded that it's there.
However, they can likely follow some directives that can help such as the ones outlined in this course.
I believe it starts by providing faculty with some latitude to experiment and try new things. If faculty are not allowed to stray from the curriculum, then it is up to the developement staff.
