Top 10 Ways To Retain Your New Belly Dancing Students
Posted: Friday, July 24, 2009
by Tracy Phaup
Tracy Phaup Group
After spending about a hundred years teaching in colleges and career development centers, I've been steeped in the art of retaining students for longer than I can just about remember. I'm definitely no expert on the art of belly dancing and would instead describe myself as simply one of your biggest fans! But I can definitely speak intelligently about the art of retaining students.
1, 2 & 3: Relationships, relationships, relationships. Relationships are the bottom line glue for building your retention levels.
Any new student is going to be bringing their concerns about what it will take to be successful with them, and until those concerns have been put completely at rest part of their minds will continue to worry about them.
Pretty inhibiting all the way around.
Some Instructors might be more skilled or gifted at breaking the ice than others, but it's essential to retaining the maximum number of students that the studio and the Instructor find ways to facilitate the building of those relationships.
4. Make sure you have a variety of ways in place for students to get plugged in. What you're striving to foster in your students is their sense of belonging. Things like a web site with a discussion forum, creating an email based discussion list just for your students, an online newsletter, a Yahoo group just for your students, as well as plugging them in to networking groups you use yourself you name it every single thing that you put in to place that the students actually use to connect with each other is more mortar for retention.
5. Put ongoing research, surveys, and feedback methods in place. It's never failed to amaze me the feedback I get from regular surveys in my classroom. It ranges from touching acknowledgments from students that I've touched not just for a semester but for life, to comments that are downright painful to hear, and they've all been invaluable towards making me a better trainer.
But most importantly what the feedback has given me is an understanding of what they need from me in order to be able to walk away from my classroom going "YES!"
As uncomfortable as getting feedback can be sometimes, it's just too empowering to miss out on. Paper based anonymous forms, a suggestion box, a feedback form on your web site, or just plain old fashioned ask! It's all good and will each evoke different kinds and levels of revealing and honesty.
6. Get creative about using small groups and group work with your students. One of the most effective ways to build your retention rate is by finding ways and means for your students to collaborate, whether it's working in small groups, buddy pairs, or as a class.
The first night of class could end with instructing your students to exchange phone numbers with at least two people that they didn't know before they came there and their "homework" is to call both of these people and speak to them at least once before the next class. Because it's an assignment that they "have" to do for homework, it lowers the level of risk that they're taking and makes it a lot more likely that they'll actually follow through.
One idea that would give them something to talk about on the call could be a handout where they're researching some questions about Belly Dancing. That way they can use the call to talk about the handout and make sure they're all finding the answers. If the questions and answers are interesting enough it will spark a more in depth conversation and suddenly they're becoming friends.
Your biggest challenge is going to be incorporating it into your classroom in such a way that it doesn't get in the way of what you're teaching them, and instead even enhances it, and the only limit to using group work is your imagination!
7. Be courageous. Some of the things I'm suggesting here may require some courage on your part, but how perfect is that? Maybe it's plugging them into your local belly dance community and having to cope with the fear that they might switch to another studio or perhaps it's about taking risks with your students that could have a negative impact on your income. I can't say what fears you might have to confront to even just play with some of these ideas, or if you're even going to have any. If you are be courageous!
8. Build your Dream Team. It's an unfortunate catch 22 that being a small business owner typically means that you're meeting such a heavy load of demands on so many fronts that it may be difficult to really free up resources you'd need to even just LET the people that care about you contribute towards your success, but building your Dream Team is probably one of the few ways - and definitely the most effective for getting past the struggle and the road to success.
The good news is you can build your Dream Team in a lot of different ways, anything from participating on an email discussion list to joining a professional organization.
You can start on building your Dream Team by developing your R & D (Research and Development) Team. This team of people can support you in completing on the rest of your Dream Team.
(more on R & D Teams coming soon!)
9. Be emotionally available for your students and never forget to connect with them as human beings and individuals. Boy! This can be a whole lot easier said than done, especially in the middle of all the doing that it takes to be a teacher, but this one can make or break a student in the classroom. Unfortunately, it's also the willingness of teachers to make that emotional investment so they can reach their students that causes teacher burnout.
10. Which is a perfect segue to number 10 which is take radical care of yourself! Teachers typically thrive on giving of themselves and probably all of us start out with a real passion for it, but if we don't take proper care of ourselves then it's just a matter of time before things start to break down. On any airplane the Air Hostess always explains to the passengers that if the oxygen masks fall that it is imperative that you put your own on before trying to help anyone else. It's a wonderful metaphor for the importance of taking care of our selves. To the extent that you're willing to take radical care of yourself will be exactly the extent of how much you'll have to give!
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