Designing for Students: Creating a Robust Interdisciplinary First Year Course
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
Building a general education program from scratch for a population of first generation and underserved students provided both a challenge and opportunity. Faculty who had limited previous experience teaching and assessing first year students engaged in study of the best practices and research. Faculty designed a four-year general education curriculum that began with a robust First Year Seminar (FYS) course, the focus of this study. This required three-credit hour interdisciplinary humanities course (FYS) was designed to embrace the understanding of what it means to be human, including understanding oneself in relation to the natural world and to others. Full time faculty from all disciplines were selected through a competitive process to teach the FYS course with embedded High Impact Practices (HIPs). Four years of teaching FYS has provided qualitative and quantitative data on the effectiveness of the design, the role of faculty, and application of HIPs. Through the course assessment process and data analysis, faculty have expanded their repertoire of pedagogical strategies to engage the first year student, and as a result, positively influenced teaching in their other courses. This report offers insights on strategies for course design, the role of faculty, and the power of selected HIPs that may be replicated at other institutions.
Downloads
Article Details
- Authors retain copyright and grant the Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (JoSoTL) right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License, (CC-BY) 4.0 International, allowing others to share the work with proper acknowledgement and citation of the work's authorship and initial publication in the Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.
- Authors are able to enter separate, additional contractual agreements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in the Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.
- In pursuit of manuscripts of the highest quality, multiple opportunities for mentoring, and greater reach and citation of JoSoTL publications, JoSoTL encourages authors to share their drafts to seek feedback from relevant communities unless the manuscript is already under review or in the publication queue after being accepted. In other words, to be eligible for publication in JoSoTL, manuscripts should not be shared publicly (e.g., online), while under review (after being initially submitted, or after being revised and resubmitted for reconsideration), or upon notice of acceptance and before publication. Once published, authors are strongly encouraged to share the published version widely, with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in the Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.
References
AAC&U (2011). The LEAP vision for learning: Outcomes, practices, impact and employers views. Washington, D.C.: Association of American Colleges and Universities.
Arreola, R. A., Theall, M., & Aleamoni, L. M. (2003). Beyond scholarship: Recognizing the multiple roles of the professoriate. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association annual meeting, Chicago, IL. Retrieved from http://maryscott.acadnet.ca/FacultySite/BeyondScholRecogRoles.pdf
Barefoot, B.O. (1992). Helping first year college students climb the academic ladder: Report of a national survey of freshmen seminar programming in American higher education. Ed.D. diss., College of William and Mary. As cited in Brownell and Swaner (2010).
Bean, J.P. (1981). The application of a model of turnover in work organizations to the student attrition process. Review of Higher Education, 6, 129-148.
Bettinger, E. & Long, B.T. (2004). Do college instructors matter? The effects of adjuncts and graduate assistants on students’ interests and success. National Bureau of Economic Research. Retrieved April 25, 2018, from http://www.nber.org/papers/w10370.
Bowen, W., & McPherson, M. (2016) Lesson plan: An agenda for change in American higher education. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. As cited in Maimon (2018).
Brownell, J. E. & Swaner, L.E. (2010). Five High-Impact Practices – Research on Learning Outcomes, Completion, and Quality. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities.
Cabrera, A.F., Nora, A., & Castañeda, M.B. (1993). The convergence between two theories of college persistence. The Journal of Higher Education, 63, (2)143-164. Retrieved January 6, 2014, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1982157.
Goodman, K, & Pascarella E.T., (2006). First year seminars increase persistence and retention: A summary of the evidence from how college affects students. Peer Review, 8(3): 26-28.
Hotchkiss J.L., Moore, R.E., & Pitts, M.M. (2006). Freshman learning communities, college performance, and retention. Education Economics, 14 (2): 197-210.
Huber, M.T. & Hutchings, P. (2005). The advancement of learning: Building the teaching commons. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Hutchings, P. & Shulman, L.S. (1999) The scholarship of teaching: New elaborations, new developments. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 31 (5) 10-15.
Jehangir, R.R. (2009). Cultivating voice: First-generation student seek full academic citizenship in multicultural learning communities. Innovations in Higher Education, 34:33-49.
Kilgo, C.A., Sheets, J.K.E., & Pascarella, E.T. (2015) The link between high-impact practices and student learning: some longitudinal evidence. Higher Education, 69:509-525.
Kolb, K.H., Longest, K.C., & Jensen, M.J. (2013). Assessing the writing process: Do writingintensive first-year seminars change how students write? Teaching Sociology, 41(1): 20-31.
Komarraju, M., Musulkin, S., & Bhattacharya, G. (2010). Role of student-faculty interactions in developing college students’ academic self-concept, motivation, and achievement. Journal of College Student Development. 51 (3): 332-342.
Kuh, George D. (2008). High-impact educational practices: What they are, who has access to them, and why they matter. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities.
Kuh, G.D, Cruce, T.M. Shoup, R., Kinzie, J., & Gonyea, R.M. (2008). Unmasking the effects of student engagement on first-year college grades and persistence. The Journal of Higher Education, 79, (5) 540-563. Retrieved January 6, 20014, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/25144692.
Kuh, George D. (2009). The national survey of student engagement: conceptual and empirical foundations. New Directions for Institutional Research, 141, 5-20.
Lester, J.N., & Evans, K.R. (2009). Instructors’ experiences of collaboratively teaching: Building something bigger. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 20(3): 373382.
Maimon, E.P. (2018) Leading academic change: Vision, strategy, transformation. Sterling, VA: Stylus.
Murray, J. & Wolf P. (2016) Faculty experience teaching an interdisciplinary first-year seminar program: the case of the University of Guelph. Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 7(1): 4. http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cjsotl_rcacea
Padgett, R.D., Keup, J.R., & Pascarella, E.T. (2013). The Impact of First-Year Seminars on College Students’ Life-long Learning Orientations. Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice 50(2): 133-151.
Pascarella, E.T. & Terenzini, P.T. (2005). A third decade of research. Volume 2: How college affects students. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Rocconi L.M. (2011) The impact of learning communities on first year students’ growth and development in college. Research in Higher Education, 52:178-193.
Tinto, V. (1987). Leaving college: rethinking the causes and cures of student attrition. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press.
Tinto, V., & Russo, P. (1994). Coordinated studies programs: Their effect on student involvement at a community college. Community College Review 22(2): 16–25.
Upcraft, M.L., Gardner, J.N., Barefoot, B.O. (2005). Challenging and supporting the first-year student: A handbook for improving the first year of college. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Vander Schee, B.A. (2011). Changing general education perceptions through Perceptions and the interdisciplinary first-year seminar. Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 23 (3): 383-387.
Willis, J.B., & Allegretti C.L. (2013). Collaborative teaching in a general curriculum seminar: an assessment of faculty outcomes. International Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 8(1): 1-16.
Zhao, C-M., & Kuh, G.D. (2005). Adding Value: Learning Communities and Student Engagement. Research in Higher Education, 45(2): 115-138.