Transcript First Year Experience slides

The first year student experience: student engagement
through peer support and curriculum design
Dr Catherine Bovill & Dr Jane MacKenzie
Academic Development Unit
University of Glasgow
Overview
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Scottish Quality Enhancement Themes context
Peer support project
Curriculum design project
What you are currently doing to enhance the first year
experience
• What you plan to do to enhance the first year experience
Quality Enhancement
Quality Enhancement Framework
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Institutional review of subjects/disciplines
Enhancement-led institutional reviews (ELIR)
Improving information about quality
Greater student representation in quality systems
National programme of enhancement themes
Quality Enhancement Themes
Previous themes
Assessment
Responding to student needs
Employability
Flexible delivery
Integrative assessment
The first year
Research-teaching linkages
New theme
Graduates for the 21st Century:
Integrating the Enhancement Themes
First year experience projects
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Sector wide discussion: the nature & purposes of first year
Student expectations, experiences and reflections
Curriculum design
Transition to and during the first year
Peer support
Personal development planning
Personalisation
Transforming assessment and feedback
Introducing scholarship skills
First year projects’ brief
• Literature review
• Gathering of case studies
• Recommendations for
– policymakers
– practitioners
– Students
• Student engagement and empowerment
Peer support in the first year
Jane MacKenzie, Learning and Teaching Centre and
Fiona Black, Recruitment, Admissions and Participation Service
Student integration
Favoured model in student retention research arising from
the work of Tinto and others
Integration needs to be both
Academic and Social and
with the Institution
Peer support – belonging
“For some students, a sense of belonging will
develop as a matter of course; for others this
may not happen unless the institution makes
an effort.”
Longden and Yorke (2004)
Some definitions
First year – the first year a student, whether
undergraduate or postgraduate, spends in higher
education
Peer – our focus is on students from the same institution
but from any year
Horizontal – same year group
Vertical –
older years supporting younger
Support – means both academic and social support
Explicit and implicit support - interventions/practice that
aid student integration – in some instances the practice
is solely to support and in others it’s a ‘side effect’
Explicit
Buddying/mentoring
Peer Assisted Learning
Online networks e.g. VLEs, FaceBook
Student Learning Communities/Freshman Interest Groups
Student societies
Self-selected study groups
Friends
Residences
Small group learning opportunities, e.g. tutorials/labs
Collaborative learning opportunities/group projects
Implicit
Kember, Lee & Li (2001) point out that a sense
of belonging is more likely to develop in
small groups.
“the logical consequence is then to
attempt to build a sense of belonging
with relatively small units such as
departments rather than large
impersonal bodies like a university”
Space for engagement
Engagement involves learning,
accepting and conforming to the
norms of the institution. From the
point of view of peer support in
the first year, learning the norms
of the institution and thus
engaging with it can be
encouraged by providing first
year students with suitable
‘space’ where they can interact
with peers in an academic and a
social context.
Recommendations:
Space for engagement
Institutional policy makers: to demonstrate through
policy, practice and funding an institutional philosophy
that recognises the benefit of collaborative learning and
opportunities for students to meet in small groups to aid
social and academic integration
Practitioners: to design curricula, courses and learning
activities that build-in small group learning opportunities
Voice for empowerment
Providing students with a voice
means that we need to accept
that students might make
decisions that do not ‘fit’ the
institutional view.
They might: challenge the
authority of the tutor,
department or institution;
question the status quo and act
in a way that does not fit the
model of the ideal student, for
example by not attending
lectures.
Recommendations:
Voice for empowerment
Institutional policy makers: to publish the outcome of
annual evaluations in formats accessible to students
and to make public changes implemented in response
to that feedback
Practitioners: departments should consider setting up
peer support partnerships where student
representatives work in pairs to attend staff-student
liaison committees.
Institutional policy makers/practitioners: to consider
finding opportunities for students (including first years)
to work as student sabbatical officers or student interns
to engage in areas of priority for the university.
Curriculum design for the first year
Dr Catherine Bovill
Academic Development Unit
University of Glasgow
Dr Kate Morss & Dr Cathy Bulley, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh
Focus of the project
Curriculum Student engagement
design
& empowerment
• first year of undergraduate programmes
• many overlaps with other projects
Data collection methods
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Literature review
Staff workshops x 2 (n=60) ‘ideal first year curriculum’
Student focus groups x 3 (n=21)
Case studies (n=25 → 8 + 5 mini)
- FY practitioners (QAA database)
- HEA subject centres
- enhancement themes website
- contacted FY & curriculum authors
Key themes: Content
1) early and regular feedback
(all data sources)
2) active learning and problem-based learning
approaches (literature, staff and case studies)
3) ‘learning communities’ to enhance transferable skills
and a sense of belonging (literature and case studies)
Key themes: Process
1) students should be participants (staff,
students, case studies + more general literature)
2) ‘ideal’ process for curriculum design (literature):
 identify start and end points (abilities on entry;
programme aim) through consultation with students,
graduates and employers
 facilitate progression of learning through strategic use
of L&T and assessment strategies across the
programme and first year in particular
 evaluate student engagement and empowerment
before and after curriculum redesign
Cautionary note
Most literature reviewed provided:
a) suggested strategies or
b) examples of innovation with no evaluation
As a result there is a danger of building
a “…massive but trivial literature”
McInnes (2001:112)
Recommendations made in this context
Recommendations
staff need support in the form of:
• dedicated time and rewards for innovation
• institutional support for improving the FY experience
• resources for further evaluation, research and scholarship
there is also a need for:
• a ‘birds-eye view’ approach
• pragmatism: start small (module-level strategies)
• involvement of first year students in design
• further evaluation, research and scholarship focusing on
curriculum design
Resources
• QAA(Scotland) Quality Enhancement Themes Website
http://www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk/default.asp
• QAA (Scotland) Peer support in the first year report
http://www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk/documents/firstyear
/PeerSupport_FinalReport.pdf
• QAA (Scotland) First Year curriculum design report
http://www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk/documents/firstyear
/Curriculum_Design_final_report.pdf
• First year student learning experience questionnaire
http://senate.gla.ac.uk/qa/studentvoice/1st_Year.pdf
• Retention Working group action plan
• First year course co-ordinators’ meeting 29th May 2009
Small groups (1)
What are you currently doing to encourage
students to get together academically and
socially?
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What are the current opportunities in your
course for students to become involved in
curriculum design?
Small groups (2)
What could you redesign about one of your
courses that would enable students to get
together?
OR
What could you redesign about one of your
courses that would enable students to
become more involved in curriculum
design?