Here’s the (very) bad news:
Many students will drop out of their STEM classes during the first few weeks of class.
The good news?
I’ve been sharing three strategies to solve that.
Strategy #1 was sending out a brief weekly survey to all students to see if there’s anything they didn’t understand in class. Or if they need any other support, such as transportation or childcare.
Strategy #2 is creating a buddy system for students. Here’s an easy, thorough, done-for-you script to help you do that. It covers everything and so you can use it right away.
"We want every student in this class to have a designated buddy. The purpose behind having a buddy is that if you have any questions that you didn't get the chance to ask during class or if you feel reluctant about asking them (even though there's no need for embarrassment), then you can turn to your buddy and say, 'Hey, did you understand this concept discussed in class? Can you assist me with it?' Additionally, if someone is absent from class, their assigned buddy will check on them and ensure everything is alright – and vice versa. Our aim here is for everyone to support one another through our established buddy system."
Adopt these strategies to foster an atmosphere of mutual assistance and support among students.
This WILL decrease the number of students dropping out of your STEM courses.
Additionally, here are two more suggestions for implementation:
1. When a student drops out, rapidly assigning their buddy to another student ASAP is crucial.
2. Whenever feasible, pair female students together so that they can connect with another female student for additional support.
If you are interested in incorporating such practical, proven, and easily executable retention strategies into your STEM programs, feel free to contact me!
“The WomenTech Educators Training was very eye-opening and it provided a vehicle and framework to focus our efforts. The most valuable aspect of the training was building our team! Getting a group of people focused and thinking about retention was a good thing. Getting the institutional buy-in is critical. While top-level management needs to know what's going on, it's the faculty—the people actually doing the work—that you need to get on board.
~ Dr. John Henshaw, Dean of Workforce Development at Mount Wachusett Community College and Project Director for Massachusetts Advanced Manufacturing TechHire Collaborative brought a team to a 2015 WomenTech Educators Online Training. Female enrollment went from only 1 female student to 9 out of 13 the next semester. Retention of both female and male students went from 50% to 100%.
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