The student experience: effective transition support

2. The student experience: effective transition support Introduction

3. Research on retention and first year experience has highlighted the complexity of transition experiences for students entering HE and through their HE studies (e.g. see Bowl, McGivney, Yorke, Upcraft and Gardner) • Research at Teesside has identified ‘critical moments’ in student learning careers within HE which make them vulnerable to withdrawal and/or to lack of success.

4. Some thoughts on the transition • Changes – physical, emotional, geographical, social, conceptual? • Changing ways of learning? • Imagination and Expectation – what is imagined and expected and what happens in ‘reality’ • Support – who provides this when moving from one learning environment to another? • Getting used to the differences - Reshaping support networks

5. Student views • ‘The thing that stands out most about my first year is the fact that I was completely responsible for my learning’. • ‘It’s such a big thing to settle down and to find your feet’ • ‘I’m usually the kind of person who does all his work, but now I have to actually think. The workload isn’t harder, but it’s different’. • Suggestion - ‘Find a campus map. The weekend before classes begin, figure out where all your classes are. You’ll feel much more at ease on your first day’ • ‘My main bugbear would be that I would have liked to have had a little bit more help from tutors, more spoon feeding time, at least at the initial stages’. • ‘College was at first a horrific and strange experience for me because the world was larger than I thought it was’.

6. ‘In fact to be honest there's not been as many feedback sessions as I thought there would have been.’ • ‘The volume of information given in the first few weeks was astounding – The tasks looked impossible at first encounter’ • ‘It’s harder than I thought, there is much more emphasis on self help’ • I found it difficult to manage the timetable as seminars and lectures were hours and even days apart..."

7. This session provides the opportunity to think about the similarities and the differences and a chance to learn from each other about effective support for transition

8. Discussion groups • How can we prepare students pre-university to aid transition? – (Matt Portas) • What is already happening in YOUR institution to prepare students for HE? – (Laurence Job) • Focussing upon skills required at HE level, what could be done to better prepare students? – (Liz Jolly) • What are the reasons for students dropping out of university in the first year? – (Diane Nutt)