Quality Enhancement Themes:

1. The First Year: engagement and empowerment3rd European First Year Experience ConferenceUniversity of Wolverhampton7-9 May 2008

2. Professor George GordonCentre for Academic Practice and Learning Enhancement, University of StrathclydeDr Christine MacphersonThe Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education

3. Quality Enhancement Themes: • Topics of interest to the Scottish higher education sector, with the aim of enhancing the student learning experience • Part of the Quality Enhancement Framework, along with enhancement-led institutional review (ELIR), student participation, institution-led subject review and public information

4. SHEEC • The Scottish Higher Education Enhancement Committee (SHEEC) plans and directs the work of the Enhancement Themes

5. Quality Enhancement Themes:Completed • Assessment • Employability • Responding to Student Needs • Flexible Delivery • Integrative Assessment

6. Quality Enhancement Themes:Current • The First Year • Research-Teaching linkages

7. Implementation • Scoping study • Steering committee including students, institutional contacts • Identify emerging good practice nationally and internationally • Programme of public and institutional events • Publication of outcomes of project work

8. Dissemination:Supported Engagement • Publications sent to higher education institutions (HEIs) and available on enhancement themes website • Dissemination phase: supported engagement with outcomes • Dissemination events • Enhancement themes newsletter • Annual conference

9. The First Year Experience:student empowerment and engagement • What is the nature and purpose of first year? • What do we want students to gain from the first year? • How can we align student and institutional expectations to achieve this? • How can we make best use of the first year to engage and empower learners?

10. The First Year Experience:student empowerment and engagement • Two broad stands of work: • Institutional discussions • Projects: • sector-wide (2) • practice-focused (7)

11. The First Year Experience:student empowerment and engagement • Sector-wide projects: • Sector-wide discussion: nature and purposes of the first year • Student expectations, experiences and reflections on the first year

12. The First Year Experience:student empowerment and engagement • Practice-focused projects: • Curriculum design for the first year • Transforming assessment and feedback: enhancing integration and empowerment in the first year • Peer support in the first year Cont’d…

13. The First Year Experience:student empowerment and engagement • Practice-focused projects: • Personal Development Planning (PDP) in the first year • Personalisation of the first year • Introducing scholarship skills: academic writing • Transition to and during the first year

14. Sector-wide discussion: nature and purposes of the first year The principal sections considered: • the Scottish scene • supporting material from the HEA • illustrations from the English HE sector • developments in Hong Kong • Australian experiences and approaches • the American scene

15. Sector-wide discussion: nature and purposes of the first year Key messages included indications that: • there is considerable interest in the first year experience • the focus upon engagement and empowerment was distinctive and considered to be timely • the discussions in Scottish HEIs demonstrated that context is crucial …

16. Sector-wide discussion: nature and purposes of the first year • active discussion occurred in institutions and it was reported that these would continue as strategies were formulated and implemented or options investigated • Scottish institutions viewed engagement and empowerment as core components of a successful student experience, albeit with differences in detailed interpretations …

17. Sector-wide discussion: nature and purposes of the first year • the project found that the most common foci of interest in Scottish HEIs were: induction; orientation; peer support; improved monitoring of students and ways of enthusing them about their studies. Ideas were being adopted from elsewhere with care taken to ensure a match to local needs and contexts.

18. Sector-wide discussion: nature and purposes of the first year: Workshop questions • How can opportunities for engagement and sharing of good practice be maximised? • What could be done to lubricate/assist/enable/inform without being seen as an external imposition/burden? • Once the main project phase is completed, what should be done to facilitate/enable/encourage embedding?

19. Sector-wide discussion: nature and purposes of the first year: Workshop questions • How can students be engaged to continue to contribute to discussions/ dialogue/ deliberations/developments? • That is, to create a continuing agenda • Does it matter if supportive vehicles for students and staff within an institution are slightly separate from the main academic discipline-based structures? • For example, university colleges in the USA or Educational Development units in the UK…

20. Sector-wide discussion: nature and purposes of the first year: Workshop questions • What are the opportunities and challenges to the apparent UK preferences for subject-based focus, with assistance from HEA subject centres? • How can it be integrated coherently into a multi-stranded strategy (institutional, disciplinary, sectoral)? • What can be done to produce high levels of practitioner engagement with the first year Theme (and indeed any enhancement initiative)? • How is that influenced by recognition and reward schemes?

21. http://www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk/