Improving Student Retention and Education

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Improving Student Retention and Education

• Dr. Lewis Pulsipher
• Central Carolina Community College, Sanford

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Student retention

• Three parts to retention
• Students must want to stay
• They must do well enough academically to stay
• They must be able to afford to stay
• Ill Talk mostly about 1, some about 2 3 can
  be on an individual basis
• These slides are more wordy than ideal, because I
  expect some will read the slides without hearing
  the talk

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Communication

• Communication with students is the best way to
  involve them in the department
• All-student meeting
• Department listserve
• Student surveys
• Department Web site
• Podcasts
• Horizon 2006 Report

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All-student meeting

• What is it
• Mass meeting with all students (especially new
  ones)
• Introduce all faculty
• Make sure students taking the right courses
• Explain what computer people actually do
• Tell them interaction with students and
  instructors is more important than book
  learning ability to do more important than
  ability to memorize
• When about the third day of school, 1-2 in the
  afternoon
• Students have met almost all classes once
• Fewer classes in afternoon
• Avoids second shift clash

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Department Listserv

• Simple way of reaching all students
• Topica, Yahoo Groups free
• Were switching, Groups has the Web site
• School provides an email address for all student
  chooses what to use
• Recognize, younger students are
  inconsistent/unreliable email users
• Horizon Report, surveysstudents prefer commo by
  cell phone

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Department Web site

• More flexibility
• College Web sites often limited in what they can
  do
• Computers.cccc.edu
• Handouts, podcasts
• Faculty schedules can be a problem
• Time-consuming for maintainer(s)
• Some faculty maintain personal sites or sites for
  particular classes
• Pulsiphergames.com

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Podcasts

• Some students more likely to listen than to read
• Not hard to do, but takes time
• Good PC microphone headset
• Audacity (free download)
• Podcasts of lectures for online students
• Computing education often not suitable for
  lectures
• Good wireless mic/headset nearly 300typical
  bluetooth headset is apparently inadequate

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Horizon 2006 Report

• Soon
• Social Computing
• Yes, Im on Myspace
• But such sites are part of socialization of
  teenagers, they really dont want to see older
  people there
• Personal broadcasting (podcasts and webcasts)
• Phones in their pockets (prefer text message to
  email)
• Educational Games
• Four or five years
• Simulations
• Context awareness
• Community college students not as used to using
  (costly) technology as university students

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Other means

• MSDN-AA
• Classroom management software
• Course management software
• Testing Center
• Games?
• Student clubs?
• Off-campus socials?

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MSDN-AA

• Microsoft operating systems, servers, other
  programmable apps such as Access, Visio,
  Project
• Lump sum annual cost, discs available to all
  students in department classes
• Freely usable in labs
• http//msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/academic/default.
  aspx

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Classroom Management Software

• Millennials are easily distractedmoths to the
  flame of the Internet
• Classroom management software controls what
  students can do on PCs
• Block Internet or allow access to specific URLs
  only
• Control which applications can be used
• Project one screen to all
• Instructor can view any screen anytime
• We are experimenting with Geneva Logic Vision
• Google itthere are many products

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Course Management Software

• Blackboard
• opinions vary
• I dont use it
• Its artificial, something you never see in the
  real world
• Ours is quite unreliable
• Tech support is awful
• Others swear by it
• Its certainly convenient for students and
  instructors, especially for distance ed
• Blackboard bought WebCT Moodle is open source

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Testing Center/Vouchers

• CCCC is a Prometric testing center
• In some cases, students can get vouchers to take
  certification tests at considerable discount
• Convenient for students

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Games?

• It helps to be able to talk games with younger
  students
• Educational gaming is coming, but Ive not
  found them for computing
• It isnt necessary to have computer games as
  opposed to non-video games, but computer students
  tend to expect it
• Computer games MUCH harder to produce

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Student clubs

• This works at a residential, four year
  schoolsometimes
• Weve tried computer club, game club
• Interest may be there for a year, then many of
  the students are gone
• Students dont live on campus, they go home or go
  to work after class
• Has not worked for us, might work at a much
  larger school

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Off-campus socials?

• Difficult to organize
• Possible liability issues
• Venue problems, money problems
• We rarely manage to do it

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Distance Ed

• Some students cannot get to school any other way,
  BUT
• Tends to leave students isolated, without
  connection to the school
• Many students do not have sufficient discipline
• Often the equivalent of learning from a book
• many students simply cannot do that when they get
  to college
• Millennial students rarely read books
• Not suitable at all for hands-on topics
• Often fails our duty to employers (cheating is
  easy)
• More suitable for advanced degrees (studying
  theory, not practice)

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Discourage Distance Ed

• MIT spokesman An MIT education happens in the
  classroom, by interacting with other students and
  with faculty, not by reading some Web pages or
  downloading some materials, or even watching a
  video lecture.
• Teaching is not about delivering content or
  covering the material. Teaching is about
  influencing students to think and solve problems,
  to understand how to behave in the workplace, to
  take responsibility for their work and their
  behavior.
• Consequently, I discourage students from taking
  Distance Ed classes

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Discussion? Slides at pulsipher.net/teaching1.htm