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Opportunities in the Student Success Process

Brittany Blalock

CUR/516

December 19, 2016

Joan Beckner
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Opportunities in the Student Success Process

Phase I

Opportunities in the Student Success Process Training Description

At University of Phoenix, the role of an Enrollment Representative in the Continuing

Education for Teachers (CET) department is to get to know the prospective students on a

personal level so they can feel confident placing them in the correct courses. This training

session will teach the representatives how to implement the Student Success Proccess (SSP) in

their conversations so that they can build rapport with the student and have a thorough

understanding of their experience and needs. With product training, our future Enrollment

Representatives will have detailed knowledge of the courses and opportunities we offer for

teachers and how this can benefit them in their careers and professional goals. Attitude and

mindfulness development will be implemented as through breathing exercises and leadership

activities.

Target Audience

The trainees at University of Phoenix have all been hired based on the requirements of

the University. Each trainee will have a Bachelors degree and two or more years of experience

in customer service. This particular training group will range from ages 23-40 with above

average skill and interest in technology. Upon entering the training, we assume that the trainees

will have high levels of excitement about their new positions and be willing to readily engage in

the instruction. While this energy may dwindle throughout the course, we hope that our plans

will assist in keeping students interested and hopeful about their skills in their new positions.

Modality
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The training session will be delivered in a classroom modality and incorporate

technology and interaction between trainees. It will span over the course of 20 business days,

each day being 8 hours. Trainees will be interacting with one another face to face and using

technological resources to communicate as well. They will be using desk telephones to practice

phone use and gain skills in managing the computer and phone at the same time. Instructors will

use highly engaging visuals and presentations to cater to the trainees who are technology driven

and some lecture style lessons for those who prefer that style of learning.

Goals

The goals of the Student Success Process training are to strengthen people skills,

communication skills, and the ability to work with a team before the trainees arrive on the floor.

The trainees will understand the importance of building relationships with the customers and

grasp the significance of caring for their wants and needs. The training will also lead to an

increase in product knowledge surrounding our classes and how they run. Once completed, the

trainees should be able to explain the product details and their benefits to potential students.

Through attitude and mindfulness development, trainees will be excited and motivated to help

their students reach their goals.

Phase II

Opportunities in the Student Success Process

Defined Goals:

Trainees will have the ability to build relationships with students and link their needs to

the Universitys products.

The trainees will be able to explain products thoroughly and have the skill in training the

students on how to utilize and navigate the website.

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Mindfulness and attitude development to manage stress through team activities,

meditation, and breathing exercises.

Objectives

Objective 1: The CET Enrollment Representative trainee should be able to demonstrate

positive communication through open ended questions in order to uncover the needs of

the potential students given a variety of professional backgrounds whenever they are on a

first initial call with a potential student.

Objective 2: The CET Enrollment Representative should be able to align the mentioned

needs with our products in order to increase revenue for the University and find the best

fit for the student whenever one of our products will result in progress towards an

endorsement, a pay increase, or professional development for the educator.

Objective 3: The Enrollment Representative trainees should have thorough knowledge of

the eCampus website and the ability to problem-solve with the students given a wide

range of low-technical skill issues and assist the students in solving their issues whenever

the student calls the representative directly with a technical question.

Objective 4: The Enrollment Representatives should be able to interact supportively with

one another and manage their time well by understanding the importance of building

networks and being present at whenever there is a meeting regarding company issues or

need for improvement.

Types of Learning

The better half of the curriculum delivered in the training will be collaborative learning

where the trainees will work together to discuss lectures, develop communication skills, and

build relationships that will last into their careers. This will be beneficial as their be focused
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primarily on the ability to establish rapport and connect with the potential students over the

phone. This collaborative learning will allow for the trainees to challenge each other and get to

know one another on a more personal level which will help each of them build confidence and a

support system. Trainees will also learn general customer service skills like calming a customer

down and how to handle complaints and frustrations through collaborative learning and role-

playing. Problem-solving learning will also be incorporated as the instructor will pose questions

about real student issues to allow the trainees to brainstorm potential solutions and discuss how

they would tackle the problem.

Instructional Strategies and Technologies

Lecture Each day will have a portion of the time devoted to lecture and video style teaching.

There are a variety of ways that this will be incorporated in order to bring fun to the classroom

and to keep the trainees engaged. The designers are fully aware that this type of teaching can

become mundane and want to do the best we can to make sure that the training does not become

repetitive and unfruitful. The instructors will want to use as much creativity as possible in their

lectures and are encouraged to bring their individual skills and passions into the sessions. A

technology that will combine the two is doodle animation that will be created through a third

party company called YDraw. These videos are proven to be successful and will help the

students understand their roles.

Role play/stimulations/drama Each day, the trainees will also be role playing with one another

over a standard desk telephone. We will separate partners into two different groups, each with

access to a telephone and the Integrated Student Support software program that they will use in

their roles. The future Enrollment Representatives will switch off on pretending to be a student

and will be encouraged to ask many questions and challenge each other. Each of the students
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will be given a check list and can score the Enrollment Representative on their tone of voice,

discovery of student issues, building the plan, and aligning product needs. The trainees will then

have a meeting after the conversation where they can discuss potential opportunities to improve.

This will be extremely helpful for the trainees to do peer reviews and feel more comfortable on

the phone. Each day the students will rotate so eventually they will all work together in pairs.

This will bring connections once they get to the floor and encourage them to lean on one another

as they grow.

Kahoot The instructors will also incorporate collaborative learning through Kahoot which is a

website that allows trainees to use their cellphones. The instructors will create questions and

answers in the system and the students can select their answer from their phones that will

populate on a projection screen. The students can challenge each other and discuss the questions

as they go on.

Phase III

Timelines and Implementations

The training will begin on January 9th and go until February 3rd. Each day will be

9 hours long with a one-hour long lunch break and two thirty minute breaks. The trainees will be

taught by two instructors in the training department who have high energy and have been in the

role of an Enrollment Representative at one point in the history of their career. There will be 20

trainees who will be new-hires at University of Phoenix who have been selected through an in-

depth hiring process that involves educational, employment, and criminal background checks.

The resources that will need to be created will be a lesson book that will be handed to

each student. As they go through videos, lectures, activities and role-playing, they will have

worksheets that they can complete and where they will have opportunities to write their notes
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and thoughts. These booklets will have interactive activities like crossword puzzles, matching,

and word-problems that will quiz the students on the knowledge of the Universitys courses.

The University will also provide sections of a book to the trainees called The Power of

the Other. These sections will be read as a class and explains the reasons why building

relationships in the workplace is so important. Often times as new employees come out of their

college careers or previous long-time positions, they can be hesitant to connect with others. As

developers, we want to make sure they feel encouraged and supported to establish healthy

relationships with their students, team members, and managers.

To communicate the plan, our instructional designers will sit down with a group of

Human Resources representatives and give them a taste of what we plan to incorporate. We will

share the doodle videos, PowerPoints, booklets, and interactive activities we plan to use, making

sure to be open to any questions. We will allow the Human Resources team to make any

adjustments and share their insights on the instruction that we demonstrated. Once the new hires

are brought onto the company, we will communicate the plan to them by sharing a general

overview in their email. They will receive links to an introduction video of the facilitator and

given instructions on what to bring, wear, and expect in their first day of training.

Formative Assessments

Formative assessments that will be used are individual white boards, effective

questioning, and submitting take-aways. With the white boards, students will be able to display

what they are learning throughout the lectures and the instructor will immediately be able to see

what they need to elaborate on in order for the trainees to get a clearer picture of the topic.

Effective questioning is also a very important tool that helps trainees better remember,

communicate, and analyze what they are learning in order to develop new ideas and become
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more innovative. Also, at the end of each day, the instructor will ask for a one or two sentence

submission of what the student believed to be the most important piece of information that they

learned that day. This will help the instructor to better understand the students and make sure the

important pieces of the instruction are captured.

Phase IV

Evaluation

Objectives will be observed by an evaluation of product knowledge. Assessments will be

created that will ask the trainees to match product details to the correct products. The students

will be graded on a percentage scale of how many of the matches they aligned correctly. The

students will also record themselves discussing one product in detail to make sure they are

communicating effectively. As the facilitators grade the recording, they will mark off the points

that the students missed in the main product benefits. This evaluation can benefit the training in

future offerings to distinguish which products the students understand on a deeper level and lead

to ensuring that the latter are explained more thoroughly. Trainees will also have a mock

conversation with facilitators who will use previous student experiences to make sure they know

how to utilize the resources to find out which courses will lead the potential students to reach

their goals. This information can be used to address future offerings as technical skills are highly

needed here and instructors will know if they need to emphasize this part of the training moving

forward.