Ensure Success for all Students in Your Higher-Ed Course

First semesters and Fall quarters are just around the corner. With the start of a new school year, the initial goal for most higher-education professors, administrators, and teaching assistants is to ensure that each and every student leaves their course, program, or seminar with a strong understanding of the concepts and skills they need to succeed within their program and out in the real world. This requires the retention and progression of as many students as possible. 

We have put together five strategies to help retain students and ensure that they leave your higher-ed course with the necessary knowledge to excel in their next course and after graduation. 

1. Clearly define what student success looks like in your course

Ask yourself what key concepts and skills do you want every student to walk away with after passing your course. Think about what parts of their learner’s journey is most important to their individual success. This can be attendance, how they perform on exams, their participation throughout the course or within group projects. Some of these parts of the learner’s journey can be higher priorities than others and carry different weights when it comes to the students’ grade. 

2. Utilize course data to your advantage

Take advantage of resources that track key performance indicators throughout your course. This kind of reporting will allow you to more easily spot struggling students or discover where students' needs are not being met early on and actively intervene. This data can also inform your communication with your students, which concepts students need more active instruction on, and the students’ overall progress through a program or individual course. By identifying behavior flags, warning signs, and performance on both assignments and assessments, you can improve both your instruction and your student retention rate. 

3. Encourage student autonomy and individual responsibility

At the end of the day, whether a student passes your course is up to them. You can provide all the individualized resources, personalized instruction, flexibility, and accommodations available, but the student will still need to feel a sense of responsibility over their own learning journey to find success.You can accomplish this through offering guided pathways to achieving both intrinsic and extrinsic goals. These pathways can be in the form of external, optional events like additional workshops, seminars, or community events that will help them better understand the concepts in their course while also offering them a sense of belonging. You can also offer secure spaces outside of your classroom where students feel comfortable asking questions or for assistance with either their peers, your assistants, or even yourself.