Retention | News

Helix Launches Retention System

• By Michael Hart
• 09/29/14

A new technology should be able to identify red flags that indicate students may be having academic problems and come up with action plans almost immediately.

Helix Education will introduce Helix Retain at the Educause Annual Conference September 29 in Orlando, FL. The technology is designed to identify certain markers that would indicate students are having problems, sometimes even before their teachers can recognize patterns, and suggest ways of dealing with specific students and their challenges.

Helix Retain will take into account available data about students such as demographics, gender and past performance. It will also identify risk factors for individual students such as test scores, absenteeism and situations in his or her life outside of school that may be affecting performance. Finally, it will consider the best way to communicate with the student and his or her family, be it via e-mail, phone calls or face-to-face intervention.

Once risk factors for students have been recognized, action plans will be recommended as well by Helix Retain.

The technology can also prioritize situations and identify risk models that can be used to not only help individual students but make pedagogical adjustments for entire classes or grade levels.

"Today's students are inundated with both internal and external factors that prevent them from accomplishing their academic goals," said Helix Education Chief Product Officer and Senior Vice President Steve Pappageorge. "Our objective is to help them effectively navigate those challenges and keep them moving toward graduation."

With Helix Retain, built on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform, data can be collected for individual students as well as entire schools, and viewed in both a quick at-a-glance and more comprehensive formats.

"Sometimes outreach is as simple as a reminder, and other times it requires direct interventions such as consistent communications and coaching," Pappageorge added. "Finding the right way to support students goes a long way in improving institutional effectiveness."