What?! It’s Week Four and I’ve Already Lost 30% of my Students?

I recently attended the continuation of our Leadership Excellence Academies (LEA) training with my ABE colleagues in Nevada.  As part of our two-year program improvement training, we examined learner persistence and discussed how we can incorporate some persistence strategies into our program improvement plan.  While this may not sound very exciting to an instructor, what is exciting are the strategies that YOU can implement in your own classrooms to address learner persistence.

If you are a fan of research, you can read the detailed findings from the study involving 18 persistence action research projects involving 755 adult learners in five New England states here.  If you just want the basics, go to World Education’s Adult Learner Persistence website.  From there, begin by selecting “Program Self-Assessment” and, if you are an instructor, scroll down to the “Instruction” section (p. 4).  Complete the assessment by substituting “I” instead of “We” using the Likert-like scale across the top.

Next, click on the ‘Instruction’ tab to the left on the Adult Learner Persistence homepage and then select ‘Read more about specific strategies’ at the bottom of the page to locate strategies that correspond with your self-assessment.   You will find a plethora of evidence-based strategies to choose from.  Bonanza!  Consider conducting an action research project and looking at before-and-after attendance hours/completion rates or comparing two of your classes (one using a persistence strategy and one as a control – for one session).  Let us know what you discover.

What the New England Learner Persistence Project researchers found was that, after instructors implemented persistence strategies, attendance increased by 16% and completion rates increased by 22%.  Wow!  You can create this magic in your own classrooms with just a few modifications.

I am a huge fan of 'Strategy e'  Continually build community and sense of belonging in the class among students.'  A colleague introduced me to an activity that would fit nicely into this category:  “Fear in a Hat,”  

We both have used it on the first day class with great success.  Students complete the phrase, “In this program, I am [most] afraid that..." or "In this program, the worst thing that could happen to me would be..." on 3” x 5” cards and place the cards in a hat.  I prefer a goofy hat like a Viking helmet or magician’s hat.  Directions from the link:  Collect the pieces of paper, mix them around, then invite each person to a piece of paper and read about someone's fear.  One by one, each group member reads out the fear of another group member and elaborates and what he/she feels that person is most afraid of in this group/situation.  No one is to comment on what the person says, just listen and move on to the next person.

We have found that this activity breaks down barriers on the first day and leads to a profound discussion of fear and obstacles and, ultimately, how to overcome one's fears to succeed in the program.

If you are one of those instructors who love ice breakers, expect a great deal of student participation, and often receive hugs as the end of your session, you will love this resource for community building.  If you don't do or expect any of the above, your class would probably benefit from a few community building activities.  The training is called TRIBES.  You can search for a local training, or you can just purchase the book at places like Amazon.  It is chocked full of pages and pages of community building activities.   The authors note age appropriateness for each activity, so you won’t accidentally insult your adult learners’ intelligence and maturity by selecting an activity geared toward K-6 students.

Additionally, Alisa Beltzar (1998) indicates that leavers from your classes don’t consider themselves ‘drop-outs’.  They stop attending but plan on returning later.  These students see their departure from a program as a ‘temporary hiatus’ rather than a ‘negative’ or ‘failure’.  We have all probably felt frustration over our students’ excuses, right?  Perhaps, armed with this information, we can feel less frustration as we shift our discussion from repeated transportation problem-solving strategies to a student’s impending hiatus and the procedure for returning to the program before they actually drop out.