First Year Experience (FYE)
The quality of the first year experience has been shown to be a crucial factor affecting retention, completions and overall course satisfaction of students. The University is therefore committed to enhancing the First Year Experience (FYE) of its undergraduate students.
The ITL collaborated with the University community in implementing the following four principles relating to the first year experience (as endorsed by the Academic Board in 2001):
- familiarising students with the University’s physical environment, academic culture, and support services;
- promoting students’ understanding of what their learning will involve and where their course will lead them;
- promoting and supporting students’ engagement with the University, including with their peers; and
- developing students’ knowledge and skills, including generic skills, in ways that take into account students’ diverse backgrounds and abilities.
The ITL has worked strategically with a faculty-based First Year Experience Working Group; a First Year Coordinators Group; and the SWOT (Student Welcome Orientation and Transition) Committee. We have carried out and disseminated research on the FYE; shared examples of good practice in first year teaching and learning; kept staff informed of current developments and events in the field; and worked with Faculties on strategies to enhance the FYE.
The FYE Working Group that the ITL established in 2000 has, since 2006 continued to meet and operate as an independent, University-wide working group. In 2009 the group was awarded a TIES grant for a project that seeks to further improve the academic, social and personal experience of commencing first-year students at the University, by establishing a community of practice amongst first year coordinators, teachers and units supporting the student experience across the University.
For more information about the TIES project, entitled ‘A Collaborative Approach to Supporting the First Year Experience Across the University’, click here.
FYE TIES Project team: Dr Nerida Jarkey (Arts), Dr Angela Ardington (Learning Centre), Dr Cynthia Nelson (ITL), Dr Michele Scoufis (Economics & Business), Dr Lorraine Smith (Pharmacy).
