Getting There

Decreasing Enrollment Turbulence
Helps Retain Teachers and Students

by M. Christina Palacios

How can a student “get there” if he or she is not consistently attending classes? When students are retained, when they persist, they discover that they can learn in spite of themselves and the negative forces that influence retention.

When Del Mar College (DMC) first partnered with the Corpus Christi ISD (CCISD) in 1995 to expand adult education services in Nueces County, the CCISD Adult Learning Center (ALC) used open enrollment while DMC used managed enrollment. At that time, ALC faculty had a long list of complaints associated with the open enrollment policy. DMC teachers, on the other hand, complained that managed enrollment had gone too far because the scholastic term at the time was defined as being three months long. Students would drop out at a rate that, by the end of the first month, some teachers were teaching less than eight students per day. This was clearly not cost effective and that some modifications to the idea of managed enrollment were needed.

Problems Associated With Open Enrollment
Sticht et al. (1998) first introduced the idea of ‘attendance turbulence’ to describe the negative impact of open enrollment on student retention. His team found that high turbulence may make it harder for students to stay in a program. It certainly makes it very difficult for teachers to provide continuity in their teaching. Open enrollment results in constant and unpredictably timed interruptions caused by new students joining a class throughout the month. It exacerbates the normal challenges faced by teachers who must address the learning needs of new and continuing students. Project-based instruction, the ALC teachers explained, is next to impossible. Lesson planning must focus on topics that can be taught effectively during one class meeting thus limiting the opportunities for synergistic learning experiences. Building community is limited because newly formed relationships are suddenly broken. Moreover, open enrollment lends itself toward a heavier reliance on implicit teaching than on the explicit teaching students prefer. At least, this is how the ALC teachers described their problems with open enrollment.

Impact of Managed Enrollment
After DMC and ALC teachers lobbied for change, the program directors adopted a managed enrollment policy that was practiced by both partners. They agreed to limit the duration of a scholastic term to one calendar month. Immediately, ALC teachers were free to try new teaching strategies. A heavy reliance on implicit teaching all but disappeared. At DMC, the teachers were assured that their classes would be filled at the beginning of each month. Low attendance experienced toward the end of the three-month cycle ended not only because the length of the term had been reduced but because we added a strict attendance policy.

Both programs assessed that managed enrollment was definitely a more cost-effective approach. With classes being filled each month, the teachers and students were happier. Teachers learned how to integrate newcomers with continuing students. Project-based instruction became possible. Application of retention strategies like building efficacy, providing supports, clarifying goals, and providing students with regular feedback on progress increased student persistence. In his 2006 article Managed Enrollment and Evidence-Based Reading Instruction, for STAR, John Strucker discusses the positive impact of managed enrollment on evidence-based reading instruction. He points out that teachers can abandon “butterfly instruction” where teachers move from student to student unable to spend more that a few minutes with each and change to: 1) the development of higher quality, interactive lessons; 2) the allocation of time for students to analyze and discuss their learning and progress; and 3) the development of learner support systems fostered by synergistic group instruction. In the same article, Strucker provides the following guidelines for administrators for changing enrollment policies:

1. Establish a mandatory orientation session prior to the start of each enrollment period where obstacles to good attendance are discussed; reading assessments are conducted; and program expectations and attendance policies are explained. (ALC and DMC have been doing this since 1995.)
2. Establish an attendance policy. Consider the length of the class session and the amount of instructional time required for learners to achieve set learning goals. (DMC established a strict attendance policy in 1999 and more recently, ALC adopted the same policy.)
3. If there are going to be exceptions to attendance policies, decide in advance what they will be rather than letting exceptions evolve on a case-by-case basis and thus undermine the policy. (DMC makes no exceptions to its attendance policy.)
4. If you are unable to implement managed enrollment program-wide, try piloting managed enrollment in the classes that serve the intermediate-level learners. (Managed enrollment at DMC is program-wide, whereas ALC retains open enrollment only for GED classes serving court-ordered students.)

Is there more we can do to help students to ‘get there’? Absolutely! In the John Comings et al. article Helping Adults Persist: Four Supports, NCSALL, Focus on Basics, 2000, we learn that managing positive and negative forces, self-efficacy, goal setting, and making measurable progress also help learners stay in programs.

About the Author

M. Christina Palacios serves as Director of the Department of GED Instruction at Del Mar College. She has been working in adult education for twenty two years. She currently serves on the board of TALAE and travels around the state as a consultant to other adult education providers and recently became the first in Texas to complete the Adult Education Administrator’s Credential. Her contact information is 101 Baldwin, Corpus Christi, TX 78404; phone 361-698-1781; Office, 316-698-2727; email: cpalaci@delmar.edu.