Creating an Effective First Year: Moving from Analysis to Improvement

Betsy Barefoot, EdD

Presentation Conference on the First Year of Study at StirlingApril 21, 2006

Where the Policy Center is located

BREVARD, NC

The Bargain of Low Expectations“Don’t expect too much of us (the

institution), and we won’t expect too much of you (the students).”

Does this bargain operate at Stirling?

Innovations on the Margins

Discrete, peripheral programs Help campuses avoid fundamental changes

First-year programs: Necessary but not sufficient

The First-Year Experience

Everything that happens to new students

The common components – what are they?

Everyone’s responsibility

Foundations of Excellence® in the First College Year Nine principles (Foundational Dimensions®) Broad, non-prescriptive

Purpose/philosophy All Students

Organization Diversity

Learning Roles & Purposes

Transition Improvement

Faculty

Link with retention?

#1. Purpose/philosophy

Is there a collective sense of purpose or a philosophy for the first year?

#2. Organization

How is the first year organized?

Does it work well? Does it need to be improved?

#3. Learning

Learning outcomes for first-year students? Institution-wide or program-specific?

How are first-year classes being taught? Do methods of teaching and testing result in OU’s

articulated learning goals?

Possible Learning Goals

Engagement Relationship to perceived relevance

Critical thinking What does it mean to faculty? What does it mean to students?

Staging learning goals for the first year Role of student support

#4. Facilitating Student Transitions When does the transition to college begin?

How does it involve secondary schools, families, other support groups?

What about those “helicopter parents”?

Expectations

Communication to students and families

Academic expectations

Expectations about working off campus

Out-of-class expectations – what are they? What’s too much involvement?

#5. Encouraging a Culture of Instructor Responsibility

The importance of out-of-class interaction between instructors and students

A need for understanding

Instructor rewards

#6. Serving All Admitted Students The best and brightest? Academically challenged? Learning disabled? Students whose first language is not English?

And – the “average” student

Meeting students’ needs for physical and psychological safety

#7. Diversity in and Beyond the College Environment Appreciation of diversity

What does diversity mean in your context?

Beyond racial and ethnic diversity to diversity of religion, politics, socioeconomic status, world view, etc.

#8. Addressing Higher Education’s Roles and Purposes More than “to get a job”

Knowledge acquisition

Leadership development

Citizenship

#9. Continuous Improvement

The essential first step to informed change

We can’t get better unless we subject ourselves to periodic review and

evaluation!

Applying this Model Beyond the First Year

Undergraduate education

Faculties and other units

What We Have Learned

Many admirable first-year bits and pieces

Ideally we would start with the vision

Realistically we start where we are

Reconsidering what to add, what to retain, what to scrap

The Payoff

Greater ability to increase student learning More efficiencies More collaboration and coherence Better communication More clarity of purpose Maybe even transformation to a more

engaging campus Improved retention ???

Taking Risks, Changing, Transforming

What we ask our students to do – we must also be willing

to do ourselves.

Contact Information

Betsy Barefoot, EdDCo-Director & Senior ScholarPolicy Center on the First Year of College

barefoot@fyfoundations.orgwww.fyfoundations.org

Copyright, 2006.

Artwork by Steve Tansley – Scottsdale, Arizona