ACADEMIC SUCCESS EXCHANGE
During our recent Academic Success Dialogue portion of the Accudemia Weekly Session, we had an open discussion with attendees about their ideas and institutional practices for referring students to their learning centers.
Ideas for Referral Systems
Some of these practices include:
- embedding direct links in online portions of courses that lead to the center’s site or appointment resources, such as Accudemia, and then asking faculty to be sure to point these out to students during interactions
- faculty members emailing names of students to a specific email address or staff member for follow-up
- training faculty to submit referral forms through Accudemia (see our recent article for more details on how this process works)
- reaching out at mid-terms to have faculty report out on any students that need additional help to pass the class based on performance and behavior and then the center reaching out to these students
- using action items/early alert flags in systems like AccuCampus to initiate customized notifications and follow-ups from appropriate staff
One center has developed a student matching program where faculty members ask students who may need extra help if they would be willing to have scheduled essay conferences. The center is given names of students who accepted the invitation from these faculty and then center staff members are assigned students to reach out to and make appointments.Â
Creating Successful Referral Programs
Some of the key aspects of a successful referral system that we discussed include communication with staff and faculty about the steps and expectations. Training on these steps as well as training for any software systems utilized for these referrals will help ensure these processes are followed.
Reminding faculty of the referral process periodically is helpful. And following up with the person who submitted the referral or including them in the updates and notifications will help them to know the system is working.
Letting the faculty or staff member know the results of the referral, such as sending reports of student visits via scheduled reports, will reinforce the importance of the referral and emphasize a culture of caring for the students who have been referred.
As with most things, a referral system that is quick and easy for staff and faculty will garner better adoption of the referral process.
With some referral systems, such as Accudemia or AccuCampus, you have the option to include the student on the notifications for the referral. This means you’ll want to make sure those making the referrals are aware of which referrals are appropriate to include the student on and which ones might need to be handled in the background as some reasons for the referral could be sensitive or hinder the progress of the student.
Join us next time!
Engineerica Systems is pleased to present our Academic Success segment recap for 7/06/2021 for the weekly Accudemia sessions. We hope that these questions help you to ponder how you can ensure every student feels welcome in your center. Check the page about our Monthly Accudemia Session to find out more about our next session and for more ideas about helping our students achieve success!
