Current Institution: James Cook University
Fellowship: ALTC Senior Teaching Fellowship at Curtin University, National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education
Fellowship Duration: 2006 - 2009
The starting point for this Fellowship was recognising that, in all their diversity, students come to higher education to learn and that it is within the first year curriculum that students must be inspired, supported, and realise their sense of belonging; not only for early engagement and retention, but also as a foundation for later years� learning success and a lifetime of professional practice. The adoption of a curriculum focus to the FYE seemed to be the missing link in current FYE theorising and practice. This Fellowship has therefore focussed on harnessing the curriculum as having an important role to play in first year transition, success, and retention. In the lead-up to the Fellowship it became clear that there is a dearth of shared wisdom available and very few accessible case study exemplars to which innovators in this field could relate. Teachers, academic managers, and institutional learning and teaching leaders were looking for both theoretical and practical assistance in designing customised first year curriculum in response (particularly) to increasing diversity in entering cohort preparedness. The enabling of academic and professional partnerships in the pursuit of this agenda also quickly identified itself as a critical issue.
A major Fellowship outcome has been the articulation of a research-based ‘transition pedagogy’ (Kift & Nelson, 2005) � a guiding philosophy for intentional first year curriculum design and support that carefully scaffolds and mediates the first year learning experience for contemporary heterogeneous cohorts. This transition pedagogy is framed around the identification of six First Year Curriculum Principles that stand out as supportive of first year learning engagement, success, and retention (Appendix 1). These interconnected organising principles are:
� Transition
� Diversity
� Design
� Engagement
� Assessment
� Evaluation and monitoring.
Other outcomes include several discipline case studies exemplifying intentional first year curriculum design for transferable implementation, an extensive engaged dissemination strategy which featured two symposia on FYE curriculum design and a substantial web presence.
Disciplines: First year, Higher education, Law
The Australian Learning and Teaching Fellows’ network (ALTF) was established in 2011 with support from the Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching. The network comprises over 100 scholars who are well placed geographically, institutionally and within their discipline communities to promote and sustain effective learning and teaching in Australian higher education, now and into the future.
The Australian Learning and Teaching Fellows’ network (ALTF) was established in 2011 with support from the Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching. The network comprises over 100 scholars who are well placed geographically, institutionally and within their discipline communities to promote and sustain effective learning and teaching in Australian higher education, now and into the future.