Meeting the challenges of English-medium higher education: The first-year experience in Hong Kong

2011 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 198-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Evans ◽  
Bruce Morrison
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Hong Kong ◽  
First Year Experience ◽  
First Year

scholarly journals Selective Planning of the First Year Experience in Higher Education: A Sweden-Australia Comparative Study of Support

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 128
Author(s):  
Michael Christie ◽  
Sorrel Penn-Edwards ◽  
Sharn Donnison ◽  
Ruth Greenaway
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
First Year Experience ◽  
Fourth Generation ◽  
First Year ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Satellite Campus ◽  
First Case ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
The University

Literature on the support of the First Year Experience (FYE) in institutions of Higher Education provides a range of modelled approaches. However, we argue that institutions still need to selectively plan which approach/es and attendant strategies are best suited to their particular contexts and institutional policy and practice frameworks and how their FYE is to be presented for their particular student cohort. This paper compares different ways of supporting students in their first year in two contrasting universities. The first case study focuses on a first year course at Stockholm University (SU), Sweden, a large, metropolitan, single campus institution, while the second investigates a strategy for supporting first year students using a community of practice at a satellite campus of the University of the Sunshine Coast (USC), a small regional university in South-East Queensland, Australia. The research contrasts a formal, first generation support approach versus a fourth generation support approach which seeks to involve a wider range of stakeholders in supporting first year students. The research findings draw conclusions about how effective the interventions were for the students and provide clear illustrations that selective planning in considering the institution’s strategic priorities and human, physical, and resource contexts was instrumental in providing a distinctive experience which complemented the institute and the student cohort. (212 words)

scholarly journals 9. Using Communities of Practice to Foster Faculty Development in Higher Education

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Teeter ◽  
Nancy Fenton ◽  
Karen Nicholson ◽  
Terry Flynn ◽  
Joseph Kim ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Staff Development ◽  
Faculty Development ◽  
Communities Of Practice ◽  
First Year Experience ◽  
First Year ◽  
Learning Networks ◽  
Academic Communities ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Faculty And Staff Development

Communities of practice are becoming more widespread within higher education, yet little research has explored how these social learning networks can enhance faculty development. The focus of this paper is to describe the first-year experience of a community of practice initiative at McMaster University that was designed to engage groups of faculty, staff, and students to share ideas and foster learning. Four communities were initiated: Teaching with Technology, Teaching Professors, Pedagogy, and First Year Instructors, all of which provided a forum of safety and support, encouraging new ideas and risk taking that in turn contributed to individual and collective learning. Though in its early days, we consider communities of practice an innovative way to regenerate current learning and surface teaching practices that can build dynamic academic communities to foster faculty and staff development. Communities of practice have enabled us to reach beyond formal structures (e.g., classrooms) to create connections amongst people from different disciplinary boundaries that generate learning and foster development.

scholarly journals Student challenges and learning strategies at Hong Kong EMI universities

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. e0251564
Author(s):  
Jack Pun ◽  
Xina Jin
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Hong Kong ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Tertiary Education ◽  
First Language ◽  
Male Students ◽  
First Year ◽  
Knowledge Application ◽  
Academic Challenges ◽  
Learning Challenges

The rapid trend towards globalization has led to the expansion of English as Medium of Instruction (EMI) in tertiary education. The academic challenges faced by non-native speakers have been broadly discussed in Anglophone countries, whilst those learning through EMI in the Chinese context are still underexplored. To examine Chinese EMI university students’ perceived language challenges in learning, as well as their language-related learning strategies, this study investigated 73 students studying at EMI universities in Hong Kong, taking account of their gender, EMI experience in higher education, and English exposure prior to tertiary education. Participants completed a survey to provide self-evaluations of their academic situation and their perceptions of their disciplinary learning. The study found that students perceived a relatively low level of language and learning challenges, and they showed a preference for using their second language (L2)-related learning strategies over strategies related to their first language. Specifically, male students tended to be more actively engaged in communication with their peers than females, and were more likely to search for additional learning support in English. In addition, first-year undergraduates perceived a greater degree of challenges in knowledge application and relied more on L2-related learning strategies than their senior counterparts. Although the importance of English exposure prior to higher education has been highlighted in many existing studies, this study found that prior exposure to English was neither connected with students’ perceived challenges nor their learning strategies.

scholarly journals Addressing the Anxious Reality of First Year Experience (FYE) In Higher Education: A Comparative Study of Research-Informed Student Support Models in Two UK Business Schools

1970 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 45-59
Author(s):  
Carol Brown ◽  
Katharine Brymer
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
First Year Experience ◽  
First Year ◽  
Primary Research ◽  
Business Studies ◽  
Coaching Process ◽  
Integrative Curriculum ◽  
Uk Higher Education

This paper evaluates the reality of first year experience (FYE) in two UK Higher Education Institutions, highlighting a gap between reported versus experienced anxiety amongst students. The paper draws on contemporary literature exploring the value of high quality discourse, via personal tutoring and coaching models, advocating ‘a whole-of-student, whole-of-organisation’ approach to FYE support within undergraduate business studies. The merits of contrasting an integrative curriculum model of personal tutoring and a coaching process model are considered. Informed by secondary and primary research, both approaches situate rich student-led dialogue central to fully understanding student issues, supporting them through their challenging and transformative first year of study, thus enabling more effective engagement with their learning and support.

scholarly journals Articulation and Continuities: First-Year Experience in Higher Education

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Birgit Schreiber ◽  
Thierry Luescher ◽  
Teboho Moja
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
First Year Experience ◽  
First Year

scholarly journals First-Year Students and the Framework: Using Topic Modeling to Analyze Student Understanding of the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 51-69
Author(s):  
Melissa Harden
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Information Literacy ◽  
Topic Modeling ◽  
Topic Model ◽  
Student Understanding ◽  
First Year Experience ◽  
First Year ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
Assigned Reading ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Objective – The Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education has generated a significant amount of discussion among academic librarians; however, few have discussed the potential impact on learning when students interact directly with the Framework itself. At the University of Notre Dame, over 1,900 first-year students completed an information literacy assignment in their required first-year experience course. Students read a condensed version of the Framework, then wrote a response discussing how a frame of their choosing was reflected in an assigned reading. The goal of this exploratory study was to determine if the students demonstrated an understanding of the themes and concepts in the Framework based on this assignment. Methods – Topic modeling, a method for discovering topics contained in a corpus of text, was used to explore the themes that emerged in the students’ responses to this assignment and assess the degree to which they connect to frames in the Framework. The model receives no information about the Framework prior to the analysis; it only uses the students’ words to form topics. Results – The responses formed several topics that are recognizable as related to the frames from the Framework, suggesting that students were able to engage effectively and meaningfully with the language of the Framework. Because the topic model does not know anything about the Framework, the fact that the responses formed topics that are recognizable as frames suggests that students internalized the concepts in the Framework well enough to express them in their own writing. Conclusion – This research provides insight regarding the impact that the Framework may have on student understanding of information literacy concepts.

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