First-Year Seminars

What are first-year seminars?

Many schools now build into the curriculum first year seminars (FYS) or other programs that bring small groups of students together with faculty or staff on a regular basis. The highest-quality first-year experiences place a strong emphasis on critical inquiry, frequent writing, information literacy, collaborative learning, and other skills that develop students’ intellectual and practical competencies. First-year seminars can also involve students with cutting-edge questions in scholarship and with faculty members’ own research (Definition from AAC&U LEAP, 2008).

What are the characteristics of first-year seminars?

According to the 2012 TAMU first-year seminar course program guidelines, an FYS Course is intended to:

• Provide first-year students a small class learning experience

• Engage students through reasonable academic challenges and appropriate faculty/staff support

• Establish a foundation upon which first-year students can begin to build lifelong learning skills

• Foster integration across curricular and co-curricular learning through High-Impact Practices

• Support student skills needed to manage everyday life

• Provide first-year students with contact to faculty/staff as a resource on university processes, such as Q-drop, FYGE, and academic advising

Literature on first-year seminars has also indicated several suggestions for increasing the likelihood of their success (Brownell & Swaner, 2009):

• • Establish goals of the seminar prior to designing the program

  • Use instructional methods that engage students through active and collaborative learning (e.g. group work, experiential learning, and problem-based learning)

  • Instructional teams are helpful; One example would be to build a resource team of faculty, librarians, technology experts, etc.

  • Help students make connections between what they are learning in the seminar and skills they will need to succeed in college and after they graduate

Why should reflection be used to facilitate this high-impact practice?

Since first-year seminars are small class environments where students are encouraged to engage actively with their instructor and classmates as they explore a new subject, an FYS is an ideal place for reflection and low-stakes assessments. Reflection prompts can help students learn more deeply about the FYS topic as well as about themselves as they are encouraged to articulate what they know and how they learned it. Since reflection activities introduced in an FYS will guide the students to a better understanding of themselves as learners, they will be more prepared for the challenges they will face in their successive coursework and co-curricular activities.

How can reflection be implemented in this high-impact environment?

1. Select from the questions below based on the integrative and lifelong learning outcomes and the TAMU student learning outcomes essential to your course or topic, adjusting the questions as needed to the level of students you are teaching.

2. Choose appropriate reflection activities.

3. Use the assessment descriptions below as a guideline for evaluating student reflections.