FYE at UTS Dr Kathy Egea FYE coordinator

1. FYE at UTSDr Kathy EgeaFYE coordinator University of technology Sydney June 28th 2016

2. UTS First Year Experience (FYE) program • an institution-wide, systematic approach to supporting transition, retention and success for first year students from low socio-economic status backgrounds, within a philosophy that good practice for these students is good practice for all students. • The program design was informed by third generation first year policy and practice (Kift, Nelson, & Clarke, 2010), including the ideas of transition pedagogy (Kift, 2009; 2015).

3. UTS FYE program FYE community and forums Central coordination University FYTE coordinators Faculties FYE Faculty CoPs FYE grants

4. FYE forum 1 2016

5. Success: Headcount and pass rate

6. Underpinnings of FYE practice: Sally Kift’s Transition Pedagogy • The intentional design of learning, teaching and assessment approaches forms an integral part of any successful transition pedagogy (Kift, 2009, p. 9) • First year Curriculum Principles (FYCPs) • Transition • Diversity • Design • Engagement • Assessment • Monitoring and Evaluation

7. FYE grant applications • Brief description of the aims and rationale for the project • Select the 1-2 strongest Transition Pedagogy principles that you are addressing.Provide detail of how the selected principle(s) is (are) addressed in your project. •  Other University/Faculty/Course/Subject priorities addressed (optional) • Key project activities and timeline, including appropriate activities that engage the overall teaching team (if applicable) • Your evaluation strategy ie how you will know that the project has been successful, with particular focus on the transition pedagogies that you have chosen, and how will you collect information to improve the outcomes? • Project Budget and budget justification

8. Transition FYCP • Transition from their previous educational experience to the nature of learning in higher education and learning in their discipline as part of lifelong learning • FY curriculum to be • consistent and explicit in assisting students’ transition • mediate and support transition as a process that occurs over time • Enable transition as ongoing process

9. Video: Messages from SurvivorsThe move from structured independent learning in year 12 to open-ended group creativity in first year university

10. Professional Practice PointsRationale Aim: to get students to think about what does it mean to be a scientist • How do scientists act? • What skills are important for your future subjects and future years at university but also in your future careers? Ideas of professional skills and their application were embedded from week 1 in the very first semester and then throughout the years.

12. Survey Results – What did you like? • After looking at the feedback from the lab assistant, they gave me a bit more confidence. • Being able to record down what went wrong or what you did good as a form of solidified self reflection • It enabled me to critique my 'performance' in the lab for each practical experiment, and to receive feedback from my lab demonstrator as to how they think I performed. • They allowed me to focus on my actions during prac classes and evaluate them. This helped me improve.

13. Your task (1 minute) • FYCP: Transition • Reflect on this principle and how it might apply to your teaching • Write comments on sheet provided and focus on • What you are doing now to address student transition?

14. Diversity principle • FY curriculum account for students’ backgrounds, needs, experiences and patterns of study • students have special learning needs by reason of their social, cultural and academic transition • few if any assumptions should be made about existing skills and knowledge.

15. FYE Grant (2012): Chemistry 1 Maths Project • Bridging the Gap between Chemistry and Maths • Materials Developed: • Questionnaire to identify background knowledge and diversity of the first year cohort • Chemistry and Mathematics background • Completion of Bridging Courses • Results from Diagnostic test

16. FYE Project: Chemistry 1 Maths Project - Demographics

17. FYE Project: Chemistry 1 Maths Project • Bridging the Gap between Chemistry and Maths • Materials Developed: • Online quizzes with extensive formative feedback

18. FYE Project: Chemistry 1 Maths Project • Bridging the Gap between Chemistry and Maths • Materials Developed: • Support booklet • 43 pages of materialcovering topics suchas algebra, logarithms, graphing skills and unitderivation

19. FYE Project: Chemistry 1 - Outcomes Subject Statistics

20. Your task (1 minute) Look at Adam’s survey: ‘Getting to know you’ Reflect your own way of managing student diversity…in your class and write the comments on the handout FYCP: Diversity • What you are doing now to understand the diversity in your class?

21. Design principle • FY curriculum design and delivery • student-focused • explicit and relevant • Provides the foundation and scaffolding necessary for FY learning success. • FY curriculum must be designed to assist student development and to support their engagement with learning environments through the intentional integration and sequencing of knowledge, skills, and attitudes.

22. Construction FY subject Challengers • First of the four Cost Management subjects • Large amount of curriculum material & heavy emphasis on numeracy • Largely digital and practice-based • Large class size • Weekly tutorial, less individual support • Students not engaged in the subject and high failure rates

23. FYE grant - Builders’ transition:Peer-demonstrator program and careers assignment design & implementation • Implemented peer demonstrators (successful higher year students or immediate graduates) to provide tutorial support to students in order to increase the ratio of teaching assistants to students. • Developed training manual in how to encourage FY students in developing their learning skills and confidence in the subject. • Collated past student feedback results (with T&L staff ) • Developed a practice-based career assessment for the subject with T&L and Career staff. • The group assignment required students to interview an industry expert to find out the role and challenges of cost management in the construction industry. • Develop a student workshop for the career assignment (interviewing practices with career services). • Developscreencasts for the subject (with academics from another school and faculty) -

25. Outcomes Peer-demonstrator program : The student feedback from focus group discussion and SFS was positive and students were happier with more tutors assisting the tutorial session. • Good tutorial sessions and the extra tutors were needed • Yes the tutors were great and very helpful. I literally relied on them to re-learn the content the lecture • The tutors were great, very helpful and happy to answer any questions • Good to have extra students - for continuous week to week support, patience and tolerance to my questions and learning in this subject The evaluation/observation forms completed by peer tutors have also provided positive feedback on the changes of subject delivery and overall students’ learning situation. Career bases assignment: The student feedback on the group practice-based career assignment was also well received by students.

26. Your task (1 minute) • FYCP: Design • Reflect on this principle and how it might apply to your teaching • Write comments on sheet provided and focus on • What you are doing now to address the design principle?

27. Engagement principle • Engaging and involving curriculum pedagogy • Active and collaborative learning • Learning communities • active and interactive learning opportunities • peer-to-peer collaboration • teacher-student interaction

28. Involving curriculum pedagogy

30. Involving curriculum pedagogy

31. Engagement through collaboration

32. Your task (1 minute) • FYCP: Engagement • Reflect on this principle and how it might apply to your teaching • Write comments on sheet provided and focus on • What you are doing now to address the engagement principle?

33. Assessment principle The first year curriculum aids transition to higher education assessment through • a range of appropriate assessment practices • provision of early feedback on student progress to students and staff • increases in complexity from first to later years.

34. Benchmarking with technology Tutors and students

35. Benchmarking with technology

36. Benchmarking evaluation

37. Benchmarking without technologyTeam discussing and agreeing on criteria

38. Benchmarking without technologyChecking requirements for referencing criteria and yellow grading cards

39. Benchmarking without technologyClass discusses how the report could have been improved

40. Reflections from academic • Tutors should be trained and work collaboratively • Criteria needs to be specific “Excellent” too vague • Great way to combine multiple classes • What is the best group size? • Consider time and timing • Range of standards - students want HD examples • Real examples of student’s work or compilation? • Students love the competition and excitement of the reveal • High energy and complete involvement • Great feedback from tutors and students

41. Your task (1 minute) • FYCP: Assessment • Reflect on this principle and how it might apply to your teaching • Write comments on sheet provided and focus on • What you are doing now to address the assessment principle?

42. Evaluation and monitoring principle • Monitor all students’ engagement in their learning • Identify and intervene in a timely way with students at risk • Evaluate your own practice Plus (at UTS) • “Get student to monitor their own practice”

43. Ethics Law & Justice Reflective Practice (classroom and assessment) • Part 1: Self-Management Plan & Reflection • early low risk (due beginning of week 4, worth 10%) • Part 1 SM plan and reflection • Part 2: Journal (week 13, worth 20%) • based on weekly posts • How do you think the learning in Ethics, Law and Justice will impact on your future as a reflective and ethical practitioner? • In your final post, discuss one issue that we looked at this semester. How you would respond to the issue as a reflective and ethical practitioner?

44. Sample of reflective task in law Assessment task 1: Reflective Journal Developing the UTS: Law graduate attribute of self-management in this subject ‘Ethics, Law and Justice’ will enable you to: • Demonstrate a developing capacity to reflect on, and assess capabilities, wellbeing and performance • Demonstrate a developing capacity to make use of feedback as appropriate • Identify, access and utilise appropriate resources and assistance to develop resilience. • Your development of Self-Management will be assessed as part of your Reflective Journal.

45. Student comments • Self-management plan • The transfer from high school to uni was all very new and initially very clueless to what is going on. But it helped me to keep on track with all work and assignments. • Reflective writing • The blog posts really made me reflect and re-evaluate my opinion weekly. The final reflection helped me to see how far I’d come from the start.

46. Your task (1 minute) • FYCP: Evaluation and monitoring • Reflect on this principle and how it might apply to your teaching • Write comments on sheet provided and focus on • What could be done to improve both students and academic reflection on “Evaluation and Monitoring”?

47. Example of FYE grant application: Selected Principles and justification Provide detail of how the selected principle(s) is (are) addressed in your project. Transition The first year curriculum explicitly assists transition academically and socially into learning in higher education and the new discipline. This project will assist transition into first year through: • engaging students in a flipped learning approach early in their Science course, • carefully scaffolded resources that promote self-efficacy and confidence in mastering threshold concepts This project will also assist student transition through to later years by developing independent learning skills to thrive in a flipped learning environment that is UTS learning.futures

48. Example of FYE grant application: Selected Principles and justification Provide detail of how the selected principle(s) is (are) addressed in your project. Design The first year curriculum is designed intentionally for commencing students, based on evidence from practice and research. We will implement a systematic flipped learning framework (Reyna et al 2015) to ensure we are addressing the needs of our commencing students in achieving the subject learning outcomes. In particular, we will concentrate on the content that have been identified as threshold concepts by Ross et al. (2010) and identified as ‘troublesome’ from past quizzes and exam papers in Biocomplexity.

49. Thank you… • Any questions?

50. Next task: world cafe • 40 minutes • 6 principles • what works, what is challenging • One principle with faciliator • 7 minutes to talk and one minute to change • After round 1, facilator will summarise past groups discussion