scholarly journals Converting a Dynamic in-Person Experience to Remote Life

Author(s):  
Alicia Roybal ◽  
Emilie Waggoner ◽  
Christy Heaton ◽  
Emily Moroney ◽  
Nicole Hoff ◽  
...  

This paper explores the work the Student Transitions and Family Engagement (STFE) team did to convert dynamic in-person experiences into virtual programs, advising, and courses. These opportunities were framed through the lenses of Academic and Social Integration (Tinto, 1975; Braxton et al., 2004), Belonging (Strayhorn, 2019), and Transition Theory (Schlossberg, 1981).  The COVID-19 pandemic caused disruptions in every sector of business and higher education and student affairs was not immune to these effects. The unprecedented disturbances to business-as-normal forced student affairs professionals to find innovative ways to welcome new students into their universities. This article details the monumental programmatic changes employed, as well as the challenges faced and lessons learned by the New Student Orientation and First-Year Experiences teams at the University of Colorado Denver. While catalyzed by unfortunate circumstances and necessity, many of the new ideas and methods developed during 2020 will be adopted as mainstays in STFE’s suite of operations and programmatic offerings.

Author(s):  
Jennifer Miles ◽  
Michael Miller ◽  
Daniel P. Nadler

New student orientation programs are importance components of institutions delivering a set of expectations to their new students. These programs and subsequent first-year experience courses convey both practical strategies for surviving on campus, but also convey a sense of institutional norms about behavior, including involvement. The current study explored the practical strategies orientation directors perceived to be effective in incresing student involvement in self-governance activities.


2009 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adele Baruch-Runyon ◽  
Zark VanZandt ◽  
S. Auguste Elliott

We studied first-year students through an integrated group workshop and longitudinal interviews that focused on students' transitional experience at the university as well as the strategies they developed to adjust to university life. Four themes emerged: the challenges of forming connections to other students with similar interests during the first few weeks on campus, the need to balance competing demands, varied experiences of connection with faculty and staff, and the need for translation of university life for minority students. To address the issues and concerns that emerged from our findings, we offer a number of advisory recommendations and programmatic initiatives. Relative Emphasis: research, practice, theory


2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 18-25
Author(s):  
Holly A. Foster

This case is for use in graduate courses in student affairs and higher education administration. It presents the challenges faced by student affairs professionals at the University of Virginia where some students participate in an annual high-risk drinking practice that has resulted in injuries and even death. Student affairs professionals at the university have attempted to address this dangerous practice for almost 20 years with minimal success. This case highlights the complex issues that administrators must often face as well as provides students the opportunity to evaluate the complex issues from the perspectives of the various constituencies involved.


2000 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Anne Germain ◽  
Trudi E. Jacobson ◽  
Sue A. Kaczor

First-year experience (FYE) programs offer librarians opportunities to teach new students in a comprehensive fashion. However, large FYE programs can place demands on user education programs that are difficult to meet. Instruction librarians at the University at Albany sought to address this dilemma by developing a Web-based instructional module for one class session. The module was used by a segment of students in the Project Renaissance FYE program, whereas another segment received instruction by a librarian. The effectiveness of the two instructional methods was compared using pre- and post-tests, and was found to be equal. Analysis of the test scores also showed that instruction, regardless of format, makes a significant difference (p < .05) in the number of correct test answers.


Author(s):  
Michael Miller ◽  
Patty Viajar

New student orientation programs are typically designed around a loosely defined set of expectations that assist in the social and academic transitions to college. An area that has only begun to receive considerable attention in these programs has to do with technology orientation. The current study reports what orientation coordinators perceive to be the most effective strategies for incorporating technology into new student orientatin programs. Coordinators agreed most strongly with the notion of emphasizing the importance of technology to new students coupled with providing new students email accounts immediately upon arrival to campus.


2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 264-270
Author(s):  
J. Derek Lopez ◽  
Jennifer M. Horn

Hispanic college students attending a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) in the southwest United States were administered the short grit survey during new student orientation for 2 consecutive years ( N = 496) to ascertain the association with grit scores and retention after the first year of university attendance. Results indicate that there was a gender difference in grit scores and retention. Few grit survey items were associated with retention, thus suggesting that the grit survey may not be an appropriate predictor of retention for first-generation Hispanic college students.


Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Fisher

The University of Alabama at Birmingham’s (UAB) growth initiative to increase access and enrollment in part through online education prompted its School of Business (BUS) to examine its current approach to this mode of instruction. The faculty-led Undergraduate Curriculum Committee in the school encouraged a more strategic approach than was previously employed. Desire to remain competitive in the higher education arena made administration eager to woo new students and better serve current ones. The BUS is keenly aware that students increasingly demand flexibility in attending classes and are willing to shop around for it. This case describes the implementation of online instruction at UAB School of Business yielding a five-fold increase in online courses in just three years with much larger gains in credit hour production than their traditional programs realized. Moreover, the case describes major accomplishments, challenges encountered, lessons learned, and solutions from instructional design and project management perspectives.


Author(s):  
Peter M. Ostafichuk ◽  
Carol P. Jaeger ◽  
Jon Nakane ◽  
Susan Nesbit ◽  
Naoko Ellis ◽  
...  

A new first year introduction to engineering experience was developed at the University of British Columbia. This paper provides an overview of the two new courses and the lessons learned both in developing and delivering the courses. Several key problematic areas in the previous curriculum were addressed, namely, to improve student connection with the engineering profession, increase design and practical engineering experiences, more effectively integrate sustainability into the curriculum, and better emphasize the human and social connection to engineering.The courses operate in a flexible learning framework with a sequence of online, lecture, and studio components arranged in a whole-part-whole format delivered to a class of 850 students. Elements of numerous effective course design, teaching and learning practices, including integrated course design, constructive alignment, components of Team-Based Learning, classroom assessment techniques, peer evaluation, and peer grading were incorporated into these courses. Student feedbackthrough surveys has shown that the new format has been highly successful in addressing most of the key high-level goals, such as establishing a student connection to the engineering profession, helping students understand what engineers do and how they do it, and providing an introduction and appreciation for design, sustainability, decision-making, professionalism, and ethics..


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