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The first few weeks of a semester is a crucial time for students,
because they are working out the answers to some very significant questions:
Do they like the classes they’re taking?
Do they feel like their instructors are people they can learn from?
Do they like their classmates?
Are they up for the workload each course requires?
And what about the arrangements they’ve made regarding their job, or transportation,
childcare, and other key relationships?
Will these plans be sufficient to get them through the semester?
And even when students are extraordinarily motivated and have
carefully anticipated their needs for the semester,
life happens,
and unexpected things can throw them off track.
If they don’t start the semester on the right foot,
students can quickly find themselves falling behind
and feeling overwhelmed.
When a student is struggling like this,
an early intervention
can be the difference between turning things around
and failure.
And, since instructors have more contact with a student than probably anyone else
on campus,
they are in a unique position to notice when a student needs extra support,
and faculty can play a pivotal role in getting them connected to the
appropriate resources.
To help with this,
the Early Warning feature in the Online Student Profile
provides instructors with a convenient tool for referring students for
assistance with counseling,
advising,
tutoring,
or other services
that your school might designate.
By logging in to the OSP,
instructors can access their class rosters,
select the names of students to be referred,
indicate the reason for their concerns,
and simply click the “SEND” button
to complete the referral and request an intervention.
The steps for accessing the Early Warning intervention form and submitting
the referral will be addressed elsewhere in Faculty Training.
But I’d like to touch briefly on some things advisors and counselors can do
to help facilitate a more productive partnership with faculty
in the process.
From the outset, each institution will need to make fundamental decisions about
how they want to implement the Early Warning process.
The first task is to define the scope of student needs that will be addressed
through the intervention process.
Will referral options include Counseling? Advising? Tutoring?
Career Counseling?
Other services?
Schools will also need to establish the protocol for following up with students.
Who is responsible for reaching out to students,
and how intrusive will the interventions be?
For example,
some schools may choose to block students’ registration until they’ve contacted an
advisor.
Alternately, some schools may simply follow a process for attempting
contact with students
and consider the students’ follow-through optional.
Once these determinations have been made,
the workflow for receiving the referrals must be mapped out.
How will these referrals be routed?
Will they go to one central e-mailbox or several?
How are referrals delegated?
Whatever an institution decides,
it’s important to base this on a realistic assessment of staffing ratios
and the number of referrals which might reasonably be anticipated
based on enrollment and the scope of services offered.
Additional factors to consider are the availability of campus and community
resources
and the technological capabilities of your data systems.
When launching an Early Warning system,
it’s not unusual to worry that you may not be adequately prepared to handle the
number of referrals you will receive.
This is an understandable concern,
because many things won’t be known until referrals start rolling in.
One way to manage this is to pilot the process
with a smaller group of students or classes.
For example, some schools have begun by focusing only on developmental
reading courses.
In this way,
they have been able to directly pair a student services staff member
with a specific faculty member.
Counselors are then encouraged to visit these classes periodically
and make routine contacts with the instructor.
This provides an opportunity to learn more about the students’ and instructors’
needs,
and it also allows time
to gauge the volume of referrals to expect
when the program is scaled up and expanded.
In time, some schools offer Early Warning to every instructor at the college,
while others continue to limit its availability for students at a greater
risk for dropping out.
Student Services staff can further enhance this process
by providing faculty with opportunities to receive training on the Early Warning
System
and related concerns.
Whether this is done through workshops, videos,
websites, or a handbook,
this will help faculty feel more confident in using the system,
and it can strengthen collaborations between student services and academic
units.
There are also
a number of essential areas to cover:
Be sure to clearly define
what types of student situations are appropriate for referral,
and what are not.
In general, it’s important to highlight the distinction between classroom
management and discipline issues,
and issues which fall within the scope of counseling or advising practices.
These boundaries, however, are frequently blurry
and occasionally overlap,
so this will be an ongoing conversation.
Counselors and advisors can heighten faculty’s awareness of specific student
behaviors
that serve as “red flags.”
This will assist faculty in identifying students in distress.
In addition to declining academic performance and attendance,
faculty may witness signs in students’ affect,
mood, language.
and other behaviors that indicate a referral is in order.
It is crucial for instructors to make students aware of their concerns before
sending a referral.
Anonymous referrals undermine the trust that is essential for a productive
counseling relationship, and “cold calls”
to students caught off-guard
don’t tend to be very effective.
But, when instructors take the time to share their observations with a student and
express concern,
this is frequently appreciated by the student
and it's more likely to result in a commitment to follow through with a
counselor.
Many faculty appreciate hearing suggestions for how to share their
concerns with students.
While some instructors feel quite at ease in doing this,
others feel uncomfortable
and will benefit from consulting with you
on helpful ways to approach a student they suspect is dealing with emotional
turmoil or a family crisis.
You may also want to design sample e-mail texts for instructors who teach online
courses or are reaching out to students with attendance issues.
It will be helpful if, up front,
you clearly express to referring faculty what your confidentiality policies are
and the limits of the information you can share with them.
While it is important to acknowledge the receipt of a referral,
and it’s generally good practice to confirm with the instructor that you have
been in touch with the student,
the details of your conversations with students should remain private
unless the student provides you with written consent to share it.
You are also encouraged to suggest that faculty offer incentives for students to
follow-through when referred.
Perhaps they can be awarded extra credit
or have a low test grade dropped.
Or, their visit to a counselor or advisor could be positively reflected in their
class participation grade.
Frequently, the extension of a deadline for a student facing extenuating
circumstances
is a welcome incentive.
At the very least, instructors should be reminded that they have considerable
influence on their students.
And, when clearly expressed,
a teacher’s encouragement and concern
can be a very strong motivator for students.
These are a few of the considerations you’ll want to keep in mind while planning,
implementing, and improving your Early Warning system
and the interventions that follow.
But remember, your process will only be as good
as the teamwork between student services
and academic departments, so always be on the lookout for new and better ways you
can work together
for the good of your students.