In my experience as the Director of Strategic Initiatives at a large urban community college, the college is dedicated to increasing retention rates. We spend significant amounts of time problem solving and trying to increase student retention. 

Similar to many higher education institutions, we incorporate an Early Alert "At Risk" flag for students who faculty identify students who need additional support. The research suggests that early alert flags have a significant impact on student retention including Dwyer who finds that "the early alert system, across all flag types, has a substantial and positive impact on developmental mathematics students. Specifically, for every Academic or Attendance flag raised (up to three flags), developmental mathematics students are nearly 20 times more likely to persist than those that were not flagged in the early alert system; those that received In Danger of Failing flags were more than 37 times more likely to persist" (Dwyer, 2017) .

However, in my experience, faculty are not comfortable labeling a student "at-risk". Despite understanding the positive impact, some faculty and students state that the flag damages relationships and adversely impacts relationships with students. Taking this into consideration, my team began to reflect on the intention and goal of the Early Alert system. The goal of early alert systems is generally for faculty to communicate risky behavior that signals a risk of not being successful nor retained. 

From this problem solving, we identified a revised goal that puts students in the reflective seat rather than faculty. Therefore, our team designed a reflective questionnaire that asks students to reflect their overall experience during the first 4 weeks of classes. Question 2 reflect on their use of active learning strategies in class during weeks 1 - 3. These active learning strategies and the question come from the UCLA First-Year Experience - End of Year Survey (YFCY-Web-Instrument.pdf | Powered by Box. (n.d.). Retrieved October 2, 2019, from https://ucla.app.box.com/v/YFCY-Web-Instrument). 

The goal of this question was not only to track whether students are using active learning strategies but also positively nudge students to think about their behavior and what types of behaviors they can and may benefit from leveraging in class. 

Then we ask students to set an intention and a commitment statement to attempting 1 to 3 active learning strategies for weeks 4 - 8. 

Finally, we ask students if they would like to be connected with campus resources including academic advising, tutoring, peer study groups and the wellness center. 

The student survey was completed by 639 students compared to 559 from the traditional early alert system. What I am excited about the Student Early Alert system is that the process puts a student in the driver seat. Rather than asking faculty how students are doing and then having advisors or tutors reach out to students to say your faculty member indicated that you are struggling. We simply ask students how they are doing. This approach is transformative because it flips the power dynamic and puts students in charge of their learning rather than saying that faculty have the power to say how you are doing. This also makes recommendations for students for new approaches. 

I am encouraged to compare the impact of both processes on retention to further explore and refine a method of transformative early alert that support transformative student learning and experiences in community college.