Check & Connect: New App, New Conference, New Program Manager!

Check & Connect (C&C) - the evidence-based student engagement intervention that has been adopted and implemented around the U.S. and internationally since ICI developed it in the 1990s - continues to experience tremendous growth and innovation. The team is introducing a new online app this fall that will enhance the mentor experience; is hosting its second international conference on October 12-13; and has welcomed new leadership in Eileen Klemm. "I am excited to serve as the Check & Connect Program Manager," she says. "As a national trainer for Check & Connect since 2012, I feel ready and motivated to grow the impact of Check & Connect across the country." One of Klemm's first tasks will be launching the Check & Connect app, which offers a mobile digital alternative to pencil-and-paper monitoring. "The app will enhance the mentor experience while also providing exciting research opportunities for us to continue to develop the Check & Connect model," wrote ICI's director David Johnson in a recent blog posted on CEHD Vision 2020.  The app will allow practitioners to more easily keep students on track to graduate, enhance fidelity of C&C implementation, save time in data entry and analysis, share visual trends in real time, and customize monitoring and reporting to suit their site. The app, developed in-house at the University's Educational Technology Innovations,  also includes an administrative feature that allows schools and districts to better coordinate their C&C mentors.

Check & Connect's other big news this fall is its international conference, "Student Engagement: Connection to School, Motivation to Learn." The conference is a forum where people who use or intend to use C&C can network and discuss best practices and implementation methods. The conference's keynote speakers will be Hedy Chang of Attendance Works and Amy Reschly from the University of Georgia. Leading experts and practitioners across the country will explain their C&C practices and current research.