Most students will drop out of their STEM classes during the first few weeks of class. In the next month, I’ll share some strategies to prevent that.
First, I recommend instructors send out a brief weekly survey to all students to see if there’s anything they didn’t understand in class and if they need any other support, such as transportation or childcare.
An electronics instructor I worked with did this and significantly improved his completion rates. He found out one student was unhoused and connected her to a student success counselor who provided her with support services, enabling her to complete the semester.
The survey will also help you, as an instructor, determine which topics students need more help with so you can adjust your instruction and your curriculum accordingly.
Would you like to bring these type of practical, easy-to-implement retention strategies to your STEM programs? Here’s more information about how to do so.
Have a wonderful Day. Let's talk afterward!
"Our college is a numbers-driven organization, so we know that the strategies we tried after the WomenTech Educators Training really made an impact. We now have more women in the program than we thought would be possible. We were able to go from only 1 female student to 15 in an Emerging Technologies course the very next semester after the training. A year later, we awarded almost half of our 43 Video Game Design & Development certificates to women. In fact, we're one of the programs that actually got off Perkins' Naughty List for not having enough women represented in the program because we were able to start meeting our goals.
~ Mark Evans, Program Chair and Instructor, Emerging Technologies, Athens Techincal College, GA brought a team to a 2015 WomenTech Educators Online Training
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