Proceedings of The 7th World Conference on Teaching and Education
Year: 2024
DOI:
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Onwards, Upwards and Outwards
Sandra Hallinan, Dr Breda McTaggart, Paula Ryder
ABSTRACT:
Student success, persistence, and retention are important topics in all higher education organisations, including the case organisation. This has resulted in the development of the Onwards, Upwards and Outwards programmes. This programme is designed to support first-year full-time undergraduate students to explore their imagined past and journey to higher education, their imagined futures and what and how their higher education learning journey could support them in achieving these goals, focusing on barriers and plans, and planning to overcome the obstacles and challenges. Over 350 first-year students were invited to participate, and over 130 attended the workshop. Data was collected using a social constructivist and social learning methodology and creative data collection methods. Early findings identified four key themes: Great Expectations – Managing Expectations – Our Expectations; Don’t Know What They Don’t; Pathways and Planning; The Journey – Student Success – What is Student Success from a student’s perspective? These results have allowed the team to consider and implement student success strategies from a student perspective. Feedback from students and facilitators advocated adopting such an approach to support a more successful transition to higher education and a more successful student learning journey.
keywords: decision-making; first year; undergraduate; transition