Learner persistence

Hello colleagues, We know that there are times when adult learners need to stop out for various reasons. Those who stop out, return to class after they've sorted out their situations. What about the students who attend sporadically? How do you handle this? Does your program have an attendance policy? Do you as a teacher have a policy? When students miss class do you attempt to catch them up on what they missed? If so, how is that working?

I invite members to talk about the persistence challenges they face and any useful policies or strategies that have been effective.

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, Teaching & Learning CoP 

Comments

Hi Susan,

This is a great question as I'm sure a lot of us have struggled with the balance between recognizing the complexity of students' lives while also accounting for other factors (consistent attendance leading to progress, wait lists yet half-empty classrooms, etc.).

This is how we've managed it at the small community site where I teach and serve as coordinator. In addition to the core leveled classes and one citizenship class, we have one night per week for conversation class and one morning for Learning Lounge (open drop-in time). Neither of these have attendance requirements, compared to the stricter expectations for the core classes. We use informal and formal as shorthand for the two types. Learners can choose to participate in a variety of ways: 1 formal class only, 1 informal class only, 1 formal and 1 informal, etc. If they don't meet the expectations for the core/citizenship classes, they are asked to participate solely in an informal class. This allows the people with more time to study to come more often, while the people who are busier can choose an option that works for them. And it allows us to take people off the waiting list when seats aren't being filled.

In the core classes, we generally start the class by reviewing the previous class and participants can get any paperwork they missed. Learning Lounge is also a possibility for catching up after being absent. Otherwise, we find it's too difficult to cover everything for everyone and accept that absences mean missing information.

Hi Susan, A brief response: lots of (and continual) acknowledgement and verbal showing of respect of the learners' efforts, despite obstacles, is a good way to promote persistence. It works for me. You have to truly place yourself in the learners' shoes. An Mitch