in the First Year Experience at QUT (original) (raw)
Related papers
Quality Enhancement Themes: the First Year Experience. Curriculum Design for the First Year
This report outlines the work and outcomes of a practice-focused development project 'Curriculum design for the first year'. The project was one of nine funded by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) under the First-Year Experience Enhancement Theme of the Scottish quality enhancement agenda. The stages of this curriculum design project included: completing a literature review; running staff workshops to gather and disseminate information; holding student focus groups to gather students, views and experiences of the curriculum; collecting case studies of interest to the sector; and reporting findings to the sector. Key findings from the literature are presented in this report. They include the need to adopt student-centred active learning strategies (Harvey, Drew and Smith, 2006; Oliver-Hoyo and Allen, 2005; Barefoot, 2002) and the importance of providing early formative feedback to students (Davidson and Young, 2005; Barefoot, 2002). Many suggestions for ...
Rebuilding the first year experience, one block at a time: A Practice Report
2019
For many years, universities around the world have been developing and enhancing the First Year Experience (FYE), with a view to improving retention, performance and student satisfaction. This feature practice report outlines a strategic initiative, launched in 2018 at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia that aims to transform the experience of Victoria University's first-year students on an unprecedented scale. This unique model reconceptualises the design, structure and delivery of first year units of study in order to deliver a program that deliberately focuses on students' pedagogical, transition and work/life balance needs. This initiative required the disruption and redevelopment of all university systems to ensure students experience a supportive and seamless transition into, and journey through, their first year of study at university.
Transforming the first year curriculum
Universities today face a wide range of challenges. In many jurisdictions, and especially where public funds provide the majority of university support, declining funding l evels have become the norm, and the ongoing global economic downturn has only made this trend worse. This paper describes this process of transformation, from gathering evidence to demonstrate the gaps between first year students' expectations and experience; to a series of planned initiatives that aimed to enhance our programs, demonstrate the achievement of specific learning outcomes, and engage faculty in a process of continuous curriculum improvement. The last section of the paper describes the many challenges we faced during this process of transformation.
This report outlines the work and outcomes of a practice-focused development project 'Curriculum design for the first year'. The project was one of nine funded by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) under the First-Year Experience Enhancement Theme of the Scottish quality enhancement agenda. The stages of this curriculum design project included: completing a literature review; running staff workshops to gather and disseminate information; holding student focus groups to gather students, views and experiences of the curriculum; collecting case studies of interest to the sector; and reporting findings to the sector. Key findings from the literature are presented in this report. They include the need to adopt student-centred active learning strategies (Harvey, Drew and Smith, 2006; Oliver-Hoyo and Allen, 2005; Barefoot, 2002) and the importance of providing early formative feedback to students (Davidson and Young, 2005; Barefoot, 2002). Many suggestions for improving learning and teaching strategies have been adopted at module level, but could be implemented strategically across the breadth of a programme curriculum. Kift and Nelson (2005) supported this view and argued that it is equally important to support these principles with systemic university-wide change, including administrative and support programmes that are also integrated with the curriculum and student needs.
Creating a first year experience
Retaining students and supporting transition to Higher Education are key issues facing many Higher Education institutions. The recent study on progression in Irish Higher Education conducted by the HEA found that an average of 15% of new undergraduate entrants failed to progress into the second year of their programme. (HEA, 2010). In Dublin Business School, a private higher education institution, retention and progression of first year undergraduate Arts students was highlighted as an area of concern. In response to this, we identified two areas which could address retention and progression of first year undergraduates: induction & creating a first year experience. Our approach was informed by research from the fields of Education, for example research conducted by Cuseo (2002) on the roots of attrition and Tinto’s (1987) US based research which concluded that “students who do not feel that they belong both academically and socially are likely to leave”, and the fields of Social/Organisational Psychology and Identity Studies. Finally the University of Ulster’s Student Transition and Retention project provided us with concrete guidelines for changing induction and our approach to first year students to promote student success. This paper will outline how we introduced a first year approach designed to improve retention and progression and ease the transition to higher education for first year undergraduate Arts students in Dublin Business School. Our first year approach included an enhanced induction, a student mentor system, increased student academic and personal support.
The first-year experience, student transitions and institutional transformation
Journal of Student Affairs in Africa, 2016
Notions of foundation support for students have been critiqued as focusing on an othered, separated and identified group of underprepared students. Traditional approaches to first-year and foundation support frequently leave the mainstream status quo unchallenged and thus reproduce and reaffirm the very exclusionary structures and systems that foundation programmes aim to challenge. In South Africa, as early as 1986 (Vilakazi), 1988 (Nzimande), and 1995 (Ndebele), academic support was critiqued as focusing on students rather than challenging the institutional practices that require transformation. More recently, Akoojee and Nkomo (2007) have argued that higher education requires a focus on the system in order to achieve transformation goals. Kioko (2010) cautions against support premised on notions of assimilation and argues that student persistence and institutional success depends on the transformation of broad educational structures. The emerging notion that the first-year experience is crucial to academic success in higher education has given rise to a focus in student affairs and higher education on the first-year experience (FYE). Conceptualisations of the FYE are located in at least three theoretical fields. Firstly, within adjustment frameworks of student retention and persistence the focus is mainly on students' adjustment in terms of behaviours, cognition and personal function, and attitudinal change, in order to adjust to the new demands of the higher education context (Tinto, 1997, 1998, 2014). Secondly, FYE may be conceptualised within stage models of student progression in which the FYE forms one stage through which students need to progress in order to engage with the undergraduate studies and to transition to work or postgraduate studies (Schlossberg, 2006). The third conceptualisation of FYE focuses on epistemological access to higher education. This is more than adjusting and potentially assimilating to the demands of higher education, and it is different from the normative changes expected at this developmental juncture.