Over the past few years I've noticed a disturbing trend in many of my classes. Most of my students do well. They understand what is expected of them, and they handle the adversity that inevitably comes in college by sticking it out and doing their best.
Some students, however, seem much more fragile. When the dark times come they buckle. It seems like every semester I have a few students who just give up on the semester. The craziest thing about this is that I can never guess who these dropouts will be. Often I am caught by surprise because I assume that they are doing better than they are.
Anyway, I have spent a lot of time over the past year or so thinking about these students. I know that as long as I challenge my students I will have some that will fall by the wayside, but I want to make sure that I am doing what I can to help students have confidence that they can succeed.
This is why I was so impressed with an article that I just read from the New York Times called "Who Gets to Graduate?". It tells of some really interesting work being done at the University of Texas-Austin to help identify and help students to fight through the dark times and to stick with it. Since UTA has made these few small adjustments they have seen big increases in student retention. I still haven't figured out exactly how I am going to do it, but I want to have a better plan in place to maintain a better relationship with my students so that I can stand by their side when the darkenss comes and help them stave it off.