First Year Experience

In 2006, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) launched its Global Engagement Initiative and began developing a set of curricular tools for faculty to use in educating globally competent citizens. A national blended-model course was developed in 2011 and has now been delivered to more than 1,200 students on 15 campuses across the country and abroad. The blended-model course is the first in what AASCU hopes will be a series of National Blended Course Consortium (NBCC) courses. In this article, the authors share the AASCU NBCC model for the Global Challenges curriculum and offer case studies on how that curriculum has been successfully delivered on two campuses.

Of the challenges facing universities, the need to attract and accommodate students of increasingly varied demographic backgrounds is perhaps one of the most pressing. This study was conducted to profile the first-year student cohort at a new university campus characterised by the non-traditional students typical of a rapidly changing tertiary sector. The project was designed to follow on from the

This paper reviews many of the observed characteristics and study habits of first-year students in Iowa State University's electrical engineering programme (Ames, Iowa, USA). The studying and problem-solving practices of the students are discussed to identify ...

University students are diverse not only in their demographics, but also in their academic literacy needs. To meet and accommodate the writing needs of all learners, writing centres were established in 2013 at a selected University of Technology (UoT). This study explored the factors that influence use of the writing centre at a selected UoT campus, using a descriptive qualitative design. The study triangulated data collected from interviews with 15 purposively recruited participants and responses from 50 consultations forms. The study findings provided insights into the academic needs of participants, factors influencing use of the writing centres and participants' evaluation of the writing centres in relation to their academic pursuit. Participants' academic literacy needs included issues with grammar, public speaking and pronunciation. Taking account of the range of needs of writing centre users at the selected UoT and the diverse factors affecting use of the writing centres, it is recommended that the writing centre invests in the continuing development of its staff so that they can be more responsive to the writing needs of its users. Furthermore, since the factors predicting use of the writing centre include personal and organizational factors, it is important that strategies to raise awareness of the writing centre be tailored appropriately to the needs of the university community.

The purpose of this short course is two-fold: to provide you with general information about art and social justice (Track 1) or ethnographic writing (Track 2), and to show you how these generalities work out in the specific context of the Oaxaca, Mexico.

The Supplemental Instruction (SI) program of the University of Missouri-Kansas City addresses attrition by providing academic support in courses that are high risk for students. The program contains a number of innovative features, for example, high-risk courses are identified instead of high-risk students, and everyone in those courses is offered assistance; student participation in small group sessions is voluntary, and evaluation goes beyond student and faculty satisfaction surveys and includes actual rates of institutional change. Small group sessions incorporate such features as informal quizzes, group discussion, test question prediction, review of previous examinations, restructuring of classroom lecture notes, and other activities. The key people in the program are the SI leaders, who are presented as students of the subject of the course. As such, they present an appropriate model of thinking, organization, and mastery of the discipline. SI leaders attend all class sessions, take notes, read all assigned material, and conduct small group sessions. The SI program has been certified as an Exemplary Educational Program by the United States Department of Education, and has received National Diffusion Network funding. This paper describes program development, specific goals and objectives, results and outcomes for students and/or the institution, and potential for adaption by other institutions.

Supplemental Instruction (SI) is a student academic assistance program that increases academic performance and retention through its use of collaborative learning strategies. The SI program targets traditionally difficulty academic courses, those that typically have 30 percent or higher rate of D or F final course grades or withdrawals, and provides regularly scheduled, out-of-class, peer-facilitated sessions that offer students an opportunity to discuss and process course information (Martin, Lorton, Blanc, and Evans, 1977).

The EOA Best Practices Clearinghouse identifies, validates, and disseminates practical activities and approaches to improve the success of students who are low-income, first-generation, and historically underrepresented in education. Rather than looking to others for solutions, the federally funded TRIO and GEAR-UP grant programs have the expertise needed. The key is sharing it more widely and comprehensively with each other. The co-sponsors for the Clearinghouse are EOA and the University of Minnesota.

This paper explores challenges in ensuring effective student transition from school or college to university. It considers the significant social displacement involved in students’ creation of new learner identities. It examines the complex liaison needed for students to progress to appropriate degree courses, settle in to university life and succeed as higher education learners. Secondary data are drawn from analysis and synthesis of international literature on transition to higher education and the formation of learner identity, to identify key concepts. Primary data are taken from two studies of student transition in North-East England using student and staff surveys, student focus groups, staff interviews, and staff/student conferences which discussed selected project data sets. The analyses of secondary and primary data are used to model the process of transition and the formation of learner identity. The modelling process identifies organizational influences from school, college and university which contribute positively to learner growth. These are: personal contact, multiple opportunities, clarity of structure, apposite information, accessibility of people and curriculum, purposeful liaison, and the awareness of the individual within the process. Research into the process of student transition to university is mainly small-scale and the field is under-conceptualised. This paper synthesizes issues from a number of studies, including longitudinal and meta-studies where available, to identify key concepts and issues. These issues are then modelled in relation to current empirical data. Through this approach, the paper seeks to enhance organisational learning about student transition and provide conceptual thinking for the field.

The Student Induction to E-Learning (SIEL) project, formerly known as Technology-Enabled Flexible Learning (TEFL), an IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS) initiative, aims to develop a better understanding of the teaching and learning opportunities and constraints that exist in designing and delivering an effective, efficient and engaging online education.

Social psychology research confirms that learning can be strongly influenced by what students believe about their academic ability. According to Dweck (2006), students with a ‘growth mindset’ believe academic ability can increase with appropriate effort and are more likely to persevere following setbacks, embrace challenges and ask questions. In contrast, students with a ‘fixed mindset’ believe that beyond a basic level, they are not able to do much to change their academic ability. Fixed mindset beliefs are linked to behaviours that that can lead to reduced learning.
The potential impact of a growth mindset on mathematics achievement has resulted in calls for the development of interventions to encourage growth mindsets and discourage fixed mindsets. A teacher looking to develop and/or use such an intervention will be influenced by their understanding of how learning happens. Therefore, a framework that shows how the behaviours associated with fixed and growth mindsets can be viewed through the perspectives of different learning theories would be useful for developers and users of growth mindset interventions.
Through an inductive process drawing on writings about Dweck’s theory of growth and fixed mindsets, behaviours characteristic of growth and fixed mindsets were contextualised in terms of the four learning theories – behaviourism, constructivism, communities of practice and connectivism. For example, choosing challenges is a growth mindset characteristic while avoiding challenges that may expose weaknesses is a fixed mindset characteristic. Through a behaviourist lens, success with challenges may be achieved from practice with similar types of problems. Growth mindsets may be encouraged by giving greater rewards for more challenging problems and allowing multiple quiz attempts until success with a challenge has been achieved. Through a connectivist lens, challenges can be resolved by connecting to information resources (e.g. people, videos). Growth mindsets may be encouraged by a teacher favouring resources that include more challenging problems and the use of a variety of methods of solving problems in the topic.
The consolidation of the different views from the four learning theories of the behaviours characteristic of growth and fixed will help practitioners to design and implement interventions for developing growth mindsets to fit their dominant learning theory.

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.

The theory of digital liminality is used to analyze the role of technology in the classroom, and in students’ lives. This is also a report on ESL classes as a site of intercultural exchange between instructors and Muslim students.  The role of digital media in higher ed was a question I confronted at a Saudi university, where students had a strong cell phone addiction. I theorized Middle Eastern students’ immersion in their cells as a liminal phase during a college rite of passage. Digital technology exposed them to things that would be inadmissible when they were later reintegrated into a deeply conservative society. My students wrote about living between “Western freedoms,” and a world of submission where most would work and raise families. In my English courses, a cell-free zone was established, enabling students to de-familiarize their use of digital technologies. Students investigated their role as “threshold people” on the verge of a new way of life, critically examining their own digitally mediated liminality. Students did presentations about the challenges of re-incorporation in a Saudi context. Combining ethnographic fieldwork and ESL theory, I integrate excerpts from student journals, providing a personal perspective on my analysis of digital liminality, and ESL classrooms as intercultural crossroads.

The development, implementation and perpetuation of student development programmes have become an essential strategy at South African universities, to meet the increasing massification of higher education head on. As a result of the diversification of this sector, previously disadvantaged groupings now frequent campuses, many of whom are underprepared and therefore need additional support to enhance their chances of success. Based on these conditions universities are under increasing pressure to improve student outcomes such as retention, persistence and completion. Mentoring is one mechanism used by universities to foster those outcomes. Mentoring has received considerable exposure in recent decades and this is evident by the proliferation of research covering the topic. In this report the literature on this ubiquitous yet elusive concept is reviewed. Firstly, an orientation to the problem is outlined. Secondly, the methodology for excavating secondary data sources is summarised. Thirdly, a critical review of literature is mapped out with the aim of harvesting key tenets to enable a ‘best practice’ mentoring programme capable of addressing transitional challenges of high-risk underprepared students. As a result, the meaning of mentoring is explored; the roles, categories, and typologies are defined; and theories reinforcing mentoring impact are delineated. Research demonstrates that mentoring is associated with a wide range of favourable cognitive, conative and affective outcomes. However, although higher incidence of positive outcomes associated with mentoring is found, sufficient evidence suggests that the ‘dark side’ of mentoring does exist. Lastly, a research proposal will validate how research should be undertaken to enable the development of a mentoring programme in which greater adherence to guidelines for the design and implementation of effective mentoring programmes should to be included.


Keywords: Mentoring, student development, university, undergraduate, students, first-year, extended programme, foundation provision, academic support, social support, underprepared, at-risk, high-risk, transition, retention, persistence, throughput, attrition, dropout.

This book is a collection of foundational concepts in the humanities and social sciences and will be of particular use to undergraduate students. This book has been written as a textbook for the interdisciplinary core arts subjects Rethinking Our Humanity and Ideas that Shook the World, and the authors hope that the interdisciplinary nature of these subjects ensures that the book's contents will be useful to any reader who wants to better understand key terms and concepts relevant to human cultures and their history. The reader should note, however, that the terms included in the book have originated from the needs of these two undergraduate subjects, which focus on concepts as they apply to contemporary Australian culture. This means that there are some biases and omissions within this first edition of the book. For instance, the terms within lean heavily towards the Western tradition, and other traditions are more cursorily covered. In subsequent editions of this book, the authors will expand the coverage of other traditions and concepts.
The authors have made a conscientious effort to ensure that each definition is concise. Overly complicated language has been avoided for clarity, but terms have not been oversimplified, and scholarly references have been provided for all entries so readers know where to find a more in-depth discussion of the term should they need it. When terms contained within the book are mentioned in another entry, readers can navigate between them using hyperlinks.
Every reference cited in the book is also included in the extensive bibliography, which will be a useful resource to readers in and of itself. By including succinct definitions and further resources together, the book acts as a starting point for research that guides students through the process.
An impetus for writing this book was that similar volumes often approach terms from a disciplinary perspective. This meant students need to access several resources when researching terms across disciplines. The authors wanted to create an interdisciplinary resource that would allow their students to access concepts across disciplines in the same place. Our hope is that the book will be useful to students as they progress in their studies and even after they have graduated.

(Purpose) The purpose of this directory was to identify, describe, and evaluate evidence that the education practices improve academic performance, close the achievement gap, and improve persistence towards graduation for low-income, first-generation, and historically-underrepresented 6th grade through college students. (Method) The sample for the directory was derived from TRIO and GEAR UP professionals located in the upper Midwest region that are affiliated with the Educational Opportunity Association (EOA). EOA and the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Minnesota created a clearinghouse to disseminate evidence-based practical activities and approaches to improve success of students who are low-income, first-generation, and historically-underrepresented in education. http://besteducationpractices.org The administrative and education best practices in this publication have been reviewed and approved by multiple members of an external expert panel of qualified reviewers. Each practice has been approved as promising, validated, or exemplary based on the level of evidence supporting it. The rigorous standards applied during the review process are similar to previous national evaluation efforts by the U.S. Department of Education (Results) The approved education practices of this 570 page directory represent each of the five major federally-funded TRIO and GEAR UP programs: (a) Educational Talent Search, (b) Upward Bound, (c) Educational Opportunity Centers, (d) Disability Services, (e) Student Support Services, (f) Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement,; and (g) GEAR UP, The directory is arranged by the following topical areas: (a) Academic Advising and Counseling [Advising Syllabus, Academic Improvement Plan, Academic Advising Management System, Podcasting Academic and Career Counseling for Post 9/11 Veterans, and Student Academic Needs Assessment]; (b) Academic Support [Integrated Learning Course for Entering SSS College Students, Tutoring for Students with Disabilities, Tutor Training and Professional Development, Structured Study Hall Days at College Campus by UB Students, and PAL Group Tutoring Program Training Manual]; (c) Assessment and Evaluation [Post Assessment Evaluation Tool for EOC Programs]; (d) Career Exploration [Senior College Experience for UB Students]; (e) Coaching Students [Coaching TRIO Students and Peer Coaching Handbook]; (f) College Tours and Field Trips [Emergency Field Trip Contingency Plan, and Planning Effective College Tours for High School Students]; (g) Curriculum [High School Financial Literacy, Integrated Approach to First Year College Experience, Summer Enrichment Program Curriculum for Middle School Students, and McWrite: Developing Scholarly Writing Skills]; (h) Disability Services [Access College Today Program]; (i) Global Studies Curriculum and Tour Procedures [Horizons Study Abroad Experience, Evaluation Tools for a Study Abroad Program, Procedures for a Study Abroad Program, and Creating Global Experiences for First-Generation and Limited Income College Students]; (j) Orientation Programs [Right Start to College Seminar for Adult Learners]; and (k) Policies and Procedures [Educational Talent Search Policies and Procedures Handbook. (Implications) Rather than looking to others for solutions, the federally-funded TRIO and GEAR-UP grant programs have the expertise needed to solve vexing problems with student success. These programs are incubators of best education practices that can be implemented elsewhere. Detailed information is provided about the education practice purposes, educational theories that guide it, curriculum outlines, resources needed for implementation, evaluation process, and contact information. Educators need to investigate these education practices to discover effective learning practices that can be adapted and adopted for use in supporting higher student achievement, closing the achievement gap, increasing persistence to graduation, and meeting the needs of culturally-diverse and historically-underrepresented students. (Additional Materials) Appended to the directory are: (1) Profiles of TRIO and GEAR UP Programs with Best Practices; (2) EOA Clearinghouse External Expert Panelists; and (3) Procedures for Evaluation of Submissions to the EOA Clearinghouse. [This directory is a revised and expanded version of ED589760.]

This report is based on the analysis of initial interviews with the staff of the Freshmen Learning Community Program (FLCP) staff. FLCP is a pilot program in engineering education that focuses on diversity and cultural change. Data includes structured open-ended interviews and observations of discussion sections and learning program meetings. Evaluation findings indicate that in 1995 FLCP was moderately successful for a small subset of students. The program appears to foster a sense of group identity, providing students with a sense of belonging at the university. Findings also suggest a significant impact on student learning processes through the fostering of a collaborative learning approach. (DDR)

The Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) program at the University of Minnesota is a primary academic support program for historically difficult, introductory college courses that serve as gatekeepers to academic degree programs. Based upon operating principles of other academic support programs and educational theories, PAL is integrated into the courses it serves. The PAL groups review essential course content, model cognitive learning strategies to deepen understanding, and promote metacognitive awareness so students are autonomous learners in courses without academic support services. The PAL approach operates at the confluence of collaborative learning, cooperative learning groups, and learning communities. This article provides a detailed overview of the PAL model, educational theories upon which it is based, and how variations of it are implemented at the institution. Quantitative and qualitative studies reveal academic and personal benefits for participating students and those serving as PAL facilitators. The studies validate the role of PAL with closing the achievement gap between students of different ethnicities and levels of academic preparedness for rigorous college courses in mathematics and science.

This qualitative study focused on observed and perceived changes in academic and personal attitudes and behaviors by student participants in the Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) program at the University of Minnesota (UMN). The PAL model employs best practices from national peer learning models including Supplemental Instruction, Peer-led Team Learning, and Emerging Scholars Program. The PAL program provides regularly-scheduled study review sessions weekly to support students achieve higher final course grades and persistence rates. In most uses of the PAL model at UMN, participation is mandatory. Arthur Chickering's Comprehensive Theory of Personal Change was used to analyze the data. Data was gathered by the PAL study group facilitators of observed or perceived changes of attitudes and behaviors by the participating students. Four themes emerged: higher academic engagement, higher confidence, increased interpersonal skills, and improved critical thinking skills. Higher engagement with the learning process was manifested through PAL participants talking more, displaying more comfort while speaking, and asking questions of the PAL facilitators and others in the group. Increased confidence was evidenced by reduction of frustration and fear and replaced with display of new cognitive and metacognitive thinking, expressions of self-confidence in ability to solve problems, and learn new academic content independently. Increased interpersonal skills was higher interaction within the study group, helping others during small group activities and within the large group discussions, making friends with the participating students and the facilitator, and actively working with fellow students to solve problems rather than preferring self-reliance and working alone. The final theme of improved 26 critical thinking was displayed by increased ability to understand and explain reasoning behind concepts. Several recommendations are offered: how study group programs could foster academic and personal growth of study group participants and areas for further research.

(Purpose) This 2018 annotated bibliography reviews seven postsecondary peer cooperative learning programs that have been implemented nationally to increase student achievement. (Methodology) An extensive literature search was conducted of published journal articles, newspaper accounts, book chapters, books, ERIC documents, thesis and dissertations, online documents, and unpublished reports. Peer learning programs in this bibliography meet the following characteristics: (a) program must have been implemented at the postsecondary or tertiary level, (b) program has a clear set of systematic procedures for its implementation at an institution, (c) program evaluation studies have been conducted and are available for review, (d) program intentionally embeds learning strategy practice along with review of the academic content material, (e) program outcomes include both increased content knowledge with higher persistence rates, and (f) program has been replicated at another institution with similar positive student outcomes. (Results) From a review of the professional literature, nearly 1,500 citations emerged concerning seven programs that met the previously mentioned selection criteria: Accelerated Learning Groups (ALGs), Emerging Scholars Program (ESP), Peer Assisted Learning (PAL), Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL), Structured Learning Assistance (SLA), Supplemental Instruction (SI), and Video-based Supplemental Instruction (VSI). Nearly one fourth of the entries in this bibliography are from authors and researchers outside of United States. (Conclusions) The professional literature of peer learning programs has grown significantly in recent years.  The literature reports not only positive outcomes for the student participants of such programs, but now includes outcomes for the student peer leaders of these academic support programs such as skill improvement with leadership, public speaking, and other employment skills along with an impact of their future vocational choices including a career in teaching at the secondary or postsecondary level. (Recommendations) Educators need to investigate these peer learning programs to discover effective learning practices that can be adapted and adopted for use in supporting higher student achievement for students of diverse backgrounds. Updated versions of this bibliography are available at http://www.arendale.org/peer-learning-bib/

This paper describes changes made to a first year mathematics module to attempt to improve opportunities for communication between the lecturer and students. The work is in progress and the paper focuses on describing the changes and the reasons they were made.

Carol Dweck's concept of growth mindset is a " threshold concept " for thinking about student success in college. This article argues that reflective writing assignments focused around process reflection ‐ the intentional, structured or systematic analysis of processes and their outcomes ‐ can contribute to gains in student retention and persistence because they help students develop growth mindset.

This annotated bibliography does not attempt to be inclusive of this broad field of literature concerning peer collaborative learning. Instead, it is focused intentionally on a subset of the educational practice that shares a common focus with increasing student persistence towards graduation. At the end of this overview, several suggestions are made for differentiating the models from each other and the level of institutional resources and resolve with implementing them. The seven student peer learning programs included in this bibliography meet the following characteristics: (a) implemented at the postsecondary or tertiary level; (b) clear set of systematic procedures for its implementation that could be replicated by another institution; (c) program evaluation studies have been conducted and are available for review; (d) intentionally embeds learning strategy practice along with review of the academic content material; (e) outcomes include increased content knowledge, higher final course grades, higher pass rates, and higher college persistence rates; and (f) the program has been replicated at another institution with similar positive student outcomes. From a review of the professional literature, six programs emerged: (a) Accelerated Learning Groups (ALGs), (b) Emerging Scholars Program (ESP), (c) Peer Assisted Learning (PAL), (d) Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL), (e) Structured Learning Assistance (SLA), (f) Supplemental Instruction-PASS (SI-PASS), and (g) Video-based Supplemental Instruction (VSI). As will be described in the following narrative, some of the programs share common history and seek to improve upon previous practices. Other programs were developed independently.

「身近な地域」の調査とウィキペディア編集の組合せの有効性と課題を，大学の初年次教育における実践をもとに整理することが本稿の目的である．対象地域は古都・奈良のならまちで，奈良教育大学の近くに歴史的町並みを有する．学生は，ならまち各町を「マイタウン」として担当し，ウィキペディア記事を作成するとともに，自治会長等への聞取りや施設訪問などをおこない，成果を報告会でのプレゼンテーションや，小学生向け冊子にまとめた．取組みを分析した結果，初年次教育として広範な意義が認められた．また，大学教育におけるローカルなフィールドワークおよびその成果の発信によって得られる知識・技能，思考力・判断力・表現力，主体性・多様性・協働性が明らかになった．大学および学生と地域社会との関係性構築にも寄与しており，初年次教育に対する地理学の貢献可能性を見出せる．

The effectiveness and challenges of a combination of a survey of a home regional area and editing Wikipedia as experiences for first-year university students were examined. A practical study was conducted in Naramachi, Nara, a former capital of Japan which has many traditional homes located near Nara University of Education. Each student was in charge of one local community designated as my town and made a page on the community on Wikipedia. After they conducted fieldwork in the towns, the results were summarized in presentations at a report meeting and in a booklet for elementary school pupils. As a result of analyzing this project, its broad significance was recognized as first-year experience at universities. In addition, the knowledge, skills, ability to think, ability to make decisions, ability to express oneself, subjectivity, diversity, and cooperation needed to conduct local fieldwork in university education and then to disseminate the results became clear. Such projects also contribute to building relationships among universities, students, and the local community. Furthermore, this study showed that geography can contribute to first-year experience at universities.

Students' beliefs about themselves and their abilities shape their first-semester college experience. This article examines the mindset of incoming college students, with particular focus on their beliefs about their intelligence, need for cognition, and goal orientation in both the academic and social domains. In order to examine some of the ways in which students operationalize their beliefs, we also asked students (N = 332) to rate their likely reactions to a variety of hypothetical academic and social situations they might encounter during their first year of college. Our goal was to expand the conversation about the "college-ready" student mindset and develop a more accurate picture of the various beliefs that students have when they enter college. In both the academic and social domains, participants rated the mindset items toward a growth perspective, the cognition items toward higher enjoyment of thinking, and the goal orientation items toward a preference for minimizing trouble and mistakes. The results also indicated significant ethnicity, gender, and ACT score differences across the major measures, but not first-generational status differences. These results suggest that student support programming should take into consideration variations in student mindset.

Groupwork has a large and important role in computer science courses. Moreover, groupwork skills are among the most important generic attributes students should develop during their studies as preparation for the world of work O'Leary, 1994, Dearing, 1997). At the same time, all who have been involved in teaching that involves groupwork will be aware that it brings challenges. It is important to support student learning of group skills, to develop instruments for evaluating this aspect of teaching and to measure student development in groupwork skill as well as student perceptions of their groupwork experiences.

This study aims to understand young people’s smartphones use and to uncover the meaning of their lived experiences of using these mobile devices, within the contexts of formal and informal learning. Applying the principles and practices of hermeneutic phenomenology, this study’s methods comprised the use of interviews and written reflective exercises. 12 youths ranging from 16-19 years old participated in 3 rounds of semi-structured interviews over a period of 6 months. The findings reveal that participants’ learning is associated with self-identity and management of their image as it is perceived by salient others, including peers and teachers. Furthermore, the participants’ smartphone use is dependent upon their perception of learning- value and subject to influences from their peers, parents and the community at large. The findings would suggest that the significance that learners attach to this form of mobile learning and the transferability of such skills and knowledge across spaces, time and dimensions is critically a function of particular smartphone use at a cultural rather than pedagogic level.

This article examines a mentoring initiative that embedded advanced students in first-year composition courses to mentor students to excel to the best of their abilities. Mentors attended all classes along with students and conducted many out-of-class individual conferences, documenting each of them using program-implemented work logs. Four hundred four first-year students provided end-of-term anonymous feedback on standardized forms, which were transcribed, digitized, and tabulated for analysis. Analysis showed that the mentoring was effective in providing the four constructs key to mentoring as identified by Nora and Crisp (2008): psychological/emotional support; support for setting goals and choosing a career path; academic subject knowledge support aimed at advancing a student's knowledge relevant to his or her chosen field; specification of a role model. Analysis also revealed a key construct not mentioned by Nora and Crisp: the mentee’s predisposition. Recommendations for implementing embedded mentoring for first-year students in other contexts follow the Discussion.

This study is part of Kwantlen's Counselling, First Year Experience, and Math Departments ongoing work to increase the success and retention of first year math students. The study measured the study skills and learning strategies of over 300 first year math students in the fall of 2004, specifically in Math 0093, 1112, and 1120 classes to determine particular study skills predictive of academic success. Five of the ten LASSI (Learning and Study Skills Inventory) subscales significantly predicted the final grades of first year math students; in specific, time management, motivation, anxiety, concentration and self testing. There were significant differences in three of the LASSI subscales between students who withdrew from the course and those who persisted, in particular, attitude, selecting the main ideas, and test strategies.

As American high school seniors graduate and prepare to attend college, these students must change in order to adapt to the new rituals that higher education presents. Teens, for the most part, leave their family structure and their normal everyday routines to pursue a degree and a chance for a good paying job.

However, these students can be unsure about their new collegiate environment. They can feel scared about moving away from their family, friends and their local community. More teens are looking at online social networks, primarily Facebook, to gain awareness of the surroundings that they are moving into. Since the advent of online social networks, there has been little research regarding how students are using this new channel of communication to adapt to the collegiate culture. This dissertation will document my triangulation study of American first-year college students’ use of Facebook as a mode of adapting to college life and how their participation on Facebook relates to their “real world” interactions.

The focus of this research will explain three of the core functions of Facebook as they relate to the development of a first year college student; (1) Facebook as a “stream of awareness” for the student, (2) Facebook as a point of engagement between the student and the collegiate environment and (3) Facebook as a “real world” community builder. These functions will be explored through the use of three methods: a survey exploring how Facebook is helping first year college students adapt and cope to their new lives on campus; a series of interviews addressing the issues that first year students are facing on campus, and the relationship between those issues and the students’ online presentation, and a virtual ethnography study of students’ Facebook profiles with a focus on how students’ online presentation impacts their everyday lives on campus.

The essay is increasingly challenged to justify its relevance and role as a pedagogical tool for introducing undergraduates to research and writing. Genre theory has provided a persuasive basis for an alternative approach that directly engages with academic disciplinarity, in light of which the essay appears to be without a clearly defined place in a modern university curriculum. This case study assesses the use of the essay in a humanities programme of long standing at a prominent research-intensive university, the UBC Arts One programme: these findings suggest that, in concert with a suitable community of practice and targeted enhancements, the essay can effectively prepare first-year students to transition from a gateway programme to upper-level undergraduate studies in a scholarly academic setting.

Successful assessment is an ongoing cycle predicated on the identification of objectives, the gathering and analyzing of data, discussions, recommendations, implementing changes, and reflection, with the goal of improving student outcomes (Buzzetto-More, 2006). Among the crucial learning goals that are frequently the subject of institutional assessment, but which commonly include only a cursory
examination is digital and information literacy.

The research shows that despite the ubiquitous prevalence of technology in their lives, most students entering higher education today have an overestimated sense of their computer skills (Hanson, Kilcoyne, Perez-Mira, Hanson, and Champion, 2011; Marakas, Johnson, and Clay, 2007; Mishra, Cellante, and Kavanaugh, 2015; Nataraj, 2014). Compounding this problem, is the misbelief held by many educators that students come to college with the competencies necessary for success, therefore making computer literacy and applications courses unnecessary. This fallacy has consistently been disproven in studies which have shown major skill deficiencies among students (Mishra, Cellante, and Kavanaugh, 2015; Hanson, Kilcoyne, Perez-Mira, Hanson, and Champion, 2011). Finally, the digital divide remains a significant concern in the United States, with race/ ethnicity, income level, and
education contributing to inequalities with the use of digital technologies. This chapter discuses an assessment and assurance of learning initiative focused on the digital and information literacy skills of
primarily first-generation students attending a mid-Atlantic historically Black university.

The assessment initiative under discussion began with a campus-wide survey and resulted in the adoption of the IC3 Fast Track assessment to evaluate students’ digital literacy skills, combined with course
redesign, and use of a remediation system. Five years’ worth of student performance data as well as the results of pre and post testing will be explored and discussed accordingly. The meaningfulness of these
findings as well as the relevance of assessing and addressing the digital and information literacy skills of students will be articulated. This topic is relevant as institutions struggle to meet the needs of incoming
students with varying levels of technological readiness so as to insure that all students have the digital literacy skills necessary for higher education success.

This paper describes a flipped and improved first-year digital circuits (DC) course that incorporates several active learning strategies. With the primary objective of increasing student interest and learning, an integrated instructional design framework is proposed to provide first-year engineering and technology students with practical knowledge of DC. The research presented here compares the effectiveness of the flipped course to the previous traditional course through a controlled experimental study. The improved effectiveness of the flipped course is confirmed through the significant increase in course content and significant improvements in students' performance and their perceptions of their learning experience. Preliminary results suggest that students' academic success, and their engagement and interest in engineering, can be enhanced by refinement of an integrated instructional design framework. The authors believe that this positive outcome is a result of alignment of online preview of lectures, face-to-face student/instructor and peer interactions, discussions, hands-on activities, combined with several active learning strategies infused into the class.

The Research Centre for Learning and Teaching (CfLaT) was commissioned by the Student Opinion and Survey Group (SOSG) at Newcastle University to conduct a survey of all first year undergraduate students at Newcastle University in March 2010. The purpose of the survey was to gain some insight into the transition experiences of first year students at Newcastle University including their pre-arrival and induction experiences. Additionally, students were asked to assess their overall first year experiences so far and their experiences of teaching and learning and engagement.

Drawing upon concepts from service-learning theorists Sarah Ash and Patti Clayton's DEAL Model for Critical Reflection (2009), this article suggests an innovative approach to critical reflection. Rather than create separate reflection assignments, which can be problematic for a number of reasons described in this article, the author offers composition teachers strategies for embedding critical reflection concepts into composition assignments to create a "reflective course." The author provides models of types of reflective assignments from a first-year service-learning writing course, including a research paper, a proposal letter to a member of the community, and an oral presentation. These models are adaptable to many levels of rhetoric and composition courses, to many genres, and to students working with a wide range of community partners. H ow we set up reflection matters. It is, after all, "the hyphen in service-learning" (Eyler 35). The hyphen embodies the philosophy behind the service-learning pedagogy: that the service and learning are not disparate concepts, but rather are intimately connected. Service-learning