Have had students with no participation for almost 2 weeks. Why bother trying to get them on the phone to participate when the same issue will happen next week? I see a large amount of drops when the 14-day appeals start going out!
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23801- Rate of progress and GPA are two common problems. Take a look at your campus catalog.
Outreach is depressing. It makes me mad. I put myself through school by working full time. I never missed a class, never made an excuse. Every time I call or email, I just get mad at how much money these students are literally wasting. They don't come to class, or come for the first two weeks but don't drop the class. Tens of thousands of taxpayer doses, literally wasted. Literally. I wish I was able to get as much money as the students do. I would have used every penny wisely and gotten my money's worth. There's a contract these students sign. It's a promise not just to pay the money back, but to get an education. And nobody seems to explain that to them.
23081, you are right, sort of. Yes, keeping a student in a class is money in the bank. But, the ultimate goal would be for the student to pass the class, so he or she can take more classes, and hence, bring in more money. So, the short term goal is to get a student to at least be marked present once very 14 days. But long term, getting students to graduation will bring in the school $30,000 to
$40,000 according to some reports. Then, according to reports, they take all this money and virtually ignore them once they have gotten all they can. Sad. Pathetic. Sick.
Thanks, 23094. I believe I only work with new students. I'm not familiar with SAP issues. Do those occur when an established student has problems with his or her GPA?
Anonymous23081- Depends. You are correct if the student is new. If the student is facing SAP problems, then the final grade is often critical.
23064, I've picked up from this board that seeing the student go from failing to passing is not the goal of the required outreach. The goal is get the non-participating student to participate long enough for the student loan to come through. If I'm wrong, perhaps someone with more knowledge can correct me.
Outreach is a big part of an instructor contract. It's very specific and non negotiable. And to the detriment of students who are working hard to earn their degrees. There are bright and good students enrolled at CCI schools. But the majority of students don't give a crap. Hence, the instructors spend most of their time wasting it.
Student services work in conjunction with instructors. But instructor contracts are very clear. Call or email each student who misses a graded assignment, the threaded discussion, grade falls below 70%, and if absent from class. Each of these separate. So, when 15 out of 25 students miss any or all of these (instructors have 1-5 classes each) and the time to do this adds up. And, more importantly, it does not work. Ever. Management sends out 'high five' emails to instructors telling us when one of the out reaches 'work.' But it's silly. All they are doing is telling us someone bothered to answer the phone and promise to participate or a student learned something, despite their 'hardships.' It's all crap. There are never emails telling us students went from F to passing. Because they don't. Students failing, fail. Students who want thirst education are present, eager, willing and engaging for the term. It's beyond a ridiculous notion that cci can do outreach and bring a student back. I had one who tried, did great, and then gave up. That's the reality.
So, outreach is only a requirement according to CCi. It doesn't make sense though to keep doing it when it's not working. The efforts spent on outreach could be better spent in so many other ways. Sad. You're right, this should not belong on the faculty's plate. Isn't this what the old role of student services would do? (I know some campuses still have this role, do faculty at those campuses do less outreach?)
I found a good word in the dictionary to describe our harassing attempts recorded on Talisma: Buggery.
23035 - YES! I agree!
I really like my job, however the ways the company is operating with the Dept. of Education is pure hell. Why doesn't the government keep out of education. Why doesn't CCI stop printing checks for "so-called students."
Obviously people found a loop hole and think CCI is the bank. They need to get a life. Ridiculous.
Real students need the opportunity to receive financial aid. So-called students need to be charged as criminals for not paying loans they promised to pay. Total BS!
I had a student respond to one of my outreach emails to tell me to stop bothering her. She had already told me before she didn't have time to take my class and she was tired of hearing from me. Then, in a thread (probably to get marked present since she had done no other work) she posted in the threads that she was sick of hearing from me and the student services rep for bothering her, because she didn't have time for this class, and we knew this. I explained, as I do to all similar responses to outreach, that I had to contact her per our rules, that I would continue to do so, and if she had problems with that to contact the dean of students for my department and the FA specialist.
CCI should have had an outreach department strictly for retaining students. It should not be the instructors' responsibility to babysit students who do not want to be in class. The instructor should instruct and for profits should not expect instructors to have any magic powers to do anything else. Outreach by instructors is a waste of time. It wears me out so much that I often have to remind myself that there are students who are there to learn. I don't think CCI should recruit students who sign loans with no intention of attending and them dump them into classes, making it our problem. Education is not supposed to be a big, entertaining party, so I am not sure what some of these students expect except to work hard to get a degree.
Yes, as instructors we know that. The issue is that outreach doesn't work. We can't keep students in the classroom if they had no intention of ever going.
Q: "Is the amount of outreach to satisfy a regulatory compliance? If not, then why do so much?" A: The only way CCi keeps those Title IV dollars rolling is by students attending class. Each student lost is $$$ lost. Sure some come back, but CCi wants (needs) its cash today.
It's startling how little it takes as an online student to be marked present. If a student goes into a thread and writes even one sentence every 14 days, he or she is marked present. I've had students once every 24 days type 'I hope you are all having a great week' and them disappear for 14 days. And they are not absent. Less than 5 minutes. And yet, they cannot get students to make that minimal commitment. There is something so wrong with that - on both sides.
So true 23027. Is the amount of outreach to satisfy a regulatory compliance? If not, then why do so much? Some is fine - it is important to know why students are not showing up and to help those that are willing to be helped. But for an instructor to spend more time on outreach than with students that actually show up is ass backwards.
23020, it's very unlikely instructors 'know' the students who need outreach. Those are the students who rarely participate and even more rarely respond to emails and phone calls. I've never been able to turn students around who have no intention of getting the education they took out a ton of loans for. I've been teaching at for and non profit schools. I've never seen retention rates so low at a school, not have so ever wasted so much time doing outreach. It's unfair to the students who are taking classes and deserve my attention and instruction. Something is badly, badly broken. And if they do outreach to just show that they are trying, the number of outreach they are doing makes them look really bad. There is something very wrong with an institution that spends more time trying to cajole students into doing a tiny bit of work than it spends educating it's students who are getting an education.
Anonymous23025- You talk about how unsafe everything is, including risk of sale, and I'll extend that to risk of bankruptcy and teach out. There is serious risk with CCi. I'd like to suggest that all the outreach crap is about as important as a merit increase. The problem is that upper management believes that increased effort results in decreased attrition. I've suggested that there is a critical point where increased outreach is just a waste of time and actually results in increased attrition. Ideally the instructors know their students and would know the proper level of outreach, which is likely greater than one e-mail and less than current CCi insanity.
My classes never filled. I'm currently not emotes with CCI. I will be happy to so the job - outreach included, if current instructors don't want to.
23020, you can't be a sarcastic jerk all you want. (Clearly you are.) my point is that they are watching. It's in our contracts to do outreach. And if you think your job as an instructor is safe just because CCI is for sake, think again. They've already begin slashing adjunct jobs at some campuses /online and are continuing to hire at others. If you sign the contract, it's your job. If you don't, you CAN be replaced. They can hire another you or bring back an adjunct that does their job. Raises should be the least of your worries.
"he got into a lot of trouble and got a low score in his review for missing outreach" lol. What are they going to do? Uh, not give a merit raise?
How about the school try to get students who have some desire to participate in the education they took out loans for just weeks ago!!!
I always do outreach. Copy paste and change the name. Repeat 40 times. But another instructor indicated on this board sometime last week that he got into a lot of trouble and got a low score in his review for missing outreach. They watch it very carefully. And we are stuck. It's in our contracts.
Last term I had students in week 12 who hadn't participated since week 4. The amount of outreach was ridiculous. Something was going on with attendance last term. I don't want to accuse, but ai hope potential buyers. dOE and Fitzgerald take a very close look into whether thei attendance practices were legal last term.
I have rarely had students dropped from the course for lack of participation. It will be interesting to see if they accurately monitor this during this term as there is more oversight.