Teaching First-Year Students

Created by Alyssa Harben from First Year Advising and Annie Kustasz from First Year Writing in collaboration with CTRL

First–year students at American University are a unique undergraduate student population linked by their shared lack of experience with the university. While some first-year students have experience with college level coursework through dual enrollment or other early college programs, those experiences were at different institutions with potentially different norms and expectations. In their first year, students are required to be constantly learning both new content and a new context. This newness to the university setting brings with it both challenges and opportunities for teaching.

Challenges Teaching First-Year Students

Teaching first-year students can be challenging in different ways than teaching students with more university experience. First and foremost, students in their first semester are learning not just the content of the courses, but also how to be a university student. For instance, they are often learning how to navigate new course management platforms, such as Canvas, as K-12 institutions use a variety of learning management systems. They are having to develop new approaches to time management and organization while navigating new social dynamics. In addition to learning a new institution, students who move to the Washington D.C. area to attend American University are also learning how to live in a new city.

Opportunities Teaching First-Year Students

While the challenges might be front of mind to many instructors looking for teaching resources, we also want to highlight unique opportunities and benefits to teaching first year students. The first is the excitement many students have when starting college for the first time. Everything is new, there are seemingly endless opportunities to get involved, and for the first time for many educated in the United States, they get to study in a major field of their choosing. In our experience, first year students are often less jaded than people with more experience in a field. Because they are not yet aware of many of the foundational concepts in a field, they are also less aware of the challenges that exist within that field of study as well.

Hidden Curriculum

Hidden curriculum is a term that is used to describe the implicit knowledge that is required for students to be successful in an educational setting. This terminology was first used to describe how elementary school children learn how to behave in educational settings even if that was not an explicit learning objective, but this concept was expanded to include the notion of information students ought to know to be successful in the 1970s by Benson R Snyder. Some examples of hidden curricula required to succeed at an institution like American University identified by CTRL include: “how to utilize a syllabus, how to ask an instructor for help with an assignment, how to participate in class, how to take notes on assigned readings, or how to study for an exam.”

This knowledge is necessary for students to succeed but generally not included in the explicit curricula in a course. Since students are not explicitly instructed on hidden curricula, they have different methods of coping. Some rely on their network, such as family members with histories of college attendance or K-12 faculty and staff, to learn these skills. Some reach out to their advisors or instructors for help. Others cobble together their own understanding through trial and error. Since students arrive at American University with varying levels of prior knowledge and access to resources, it is essential for professors to promote equitable opportunities for success by intentionally making implicit expectations explicit through well-designed assignments and lesson plans.

Integrate the use of resources into your class, not just telling students about resources

One way to mitigate the inequity of knowledge about hidden curricula is to integrate the practices that comprise the hidden curricula into your classroom. Importantly, the students should be given practice applying the skills or using the resources in question. If the information is shared without active integration into assessment or instruction, students are unlikely to have their misconceptions challenged.

For example, first-year students might be aware that a writing center exists but not be aware that the writing center is a free resource that is available for support at any stage of a writing project. In that scenario, they might assume that they need a final draft and miss out on support in the planning stages that could have streamlined their writing process. First-year students might know that there is a library building on campus, but without exposure to the librarians and the research resources the library hosts, they are unlikely to know about the higher quality information they have access to through the university. In that scenario, students might turn to generative AI tools or simple search engines that do not deliver the best results. Likewise, a first-year student might see when you have scheduled your office hours, but unless they know that office hours are the time you are setting aside to support their learning, they are unlikely to show up to speak to you.

Rather than simply including a list of campus resources in the syllabus, identify which campus resources and which academic norms are most applicable to your discipline. Then, determine a way to explicitly integrate the practice of using the resources into your instruction and assessments.

Don’t assume your students are learning things anywhere else (Especially in courses with no pre-reqs or co-reqs)

Another important consideration for addressing hidden curricula is examining our assumptions. As faculty, we must resist the urge to rely on our own personal experiences of higher education and remember our students are arriving in a different context. This is especially important when developing assessments. If your course does not have any prerequisites or corequisites, your students should not be held accountable to things they weren’t taught to do in advance of taking your course.

Try to avoid assessing students on skills that you have not taught them without appropriately connecting them with resources. This does not mean you can’t assign a writing assignment in their first semester if you are not teaching composition. Rather, if you are assigning a writing assignment in students’ first semester, you could actively connect the students to the writing center or incorporate guided peer review of drafts of their assignments. The scaffolding section below has additional suggestions.

Get meta- explain why you are asking students to do things a certain way

Another way to address the inequities of hidden curricula is to explicitly talk about expectations and reasons for the instructional decisions you make. This can help students feel a part of not only the class structure but that they have a say in the class. For example, if part of your teaching philosophy is the Socratic method, you should be able to explain the benefits of calling on students to answer guided questions to generate understanding.

While it often seems obvious to instructors that the material we assign has a specific value, that value might not be obvious to a student with limited college level experience. In that scenario, you could make the implicit expectation explicit by telling students that you assign the reading with the expectation that they come to class prepared to discuss with their classmates.

Another example is the practice of citing sources. As scholars, we have been trained to see the value of citations, but it’s not always obvious to new students why we require them. Students often approach citations with the question of “what is the minimum number of sources required?” rather than “how can I build the strongest argument?” or “Is it clear to my audience where this source was used to build my argument?” A discussion of the role properly formatted citations play in your discipline could be useful in challenging them to rethink the process of constructing knowledge.

Resources

The Hidden Curriculum: Helping Students Learn the ‘Secret’ Keys to Success | CTRL Faculty Resources

Belonging and Community

Belonging and Community are crucial aspects of a classroom to develop, but specifically within first-year students as they navigate settling into not only a new living space but a new community here at American University. American University is a community itself but for first-year students finding their place within that community is an added experience they face. Fostering a sense of belonging and community within first-year-centered classes has been shown to improve academic outcomes and create positive experiences that can impact student’s mental health. While this is great for the classroom, its added benefit is students can begin to see themselves as vital to university as a whole in both shaping culture and providing learning experiences. Encouraging study groups outside of class of finding ways to get to know the culture of your classroom allows for a sense of community to develop, and for students to feel like they have a place at American University beyond their field of study.

What to do about it?

Foster a sense of belonging

Fostering a sense of belonging centers on intentionality and cultivating a space where students feel heard, seen, and valued. This can take place in creating questions within class material that center on student’s lived experiences, in posing metacognitive questions that ask students how the skills they learned in your class apply to their other classes, or in formatting discussions that allow students spaces to share their interests, scaffolded to course objectives. Belonging centers on the small moments in the classroom where space is created for a student to share, learn, and grow. Think of your own unique experiences in how you feel belonging—how might you replicate this for a classroom?

Create classroom community

Creating a community within a classroom is not only important for first-year students who might be leaving familiar friend groups from high school behind, but it is also important for the fabric of the class as well. Classroom community is not just a result of icebreakers on the first day, it’s finding ways to replicate the common ground of continuing to get to know one another throughout the semester. For example, you could start with an icebreaker style question in each class period or in each unit of the course. Or you could design a “class playlist” together that plays during breakout discussion or before/after class. Community in a classroom is making sure your students know each other’s names, pronouns, and majors—this can help you facilitate initial points of contact for students to build off classroom discussion or in-class work. Community is something, like belonging, that takes intentionally.

One important thing to remember regarding a classroom community is that interactions between students are what’s important- not primarily interactions with the instructor. You should be aiming to facilitate the students’ conversations with each other with your prompts. Having a level of comfort with your peers before discussing class content can enable better content related discussion. Likewise, having a community in a classroom can make a potentially vulnerable experience, like showing an early draft of a paper to a reader, a more comfortable experience. This enables more opportunities to practice giving and receiving feedback.

Resources

Overview: Effective Belonging Messages – Equity Accelerator

Peter Felten: “Relationship Rich Education” Relationship-Rich Education – Teaching Resources

Dallin George Young “Rethinking Student Transition Part 1: Building A Case for a Reimagining of Transitions. In Rethinking Student Transitions

Sense of Belonging in College Freshmen at the Classroom and Campus Levels on JSTOR

Positive Academic Habits

Curiosity, openness, engagement, creativity, responsibility, flexibility, and metacognition are all mindful habits students can become aware of to create positive academic habits. Academic habits go beyond studying the course material, taking notes, and being present in class. Positive academic habits showcase why foundational skills matter beyond the college classroom and scaffold experiences in the classroom. Creating questions, understanding how to dialogue, and taking accountability are lifelong skills that first-year students can begin to develop for their college experience and future careers.

What to do about it?

Encourage embodied learning experiences

“Embodied experiences” can be defined as ways students can learn through interactions and specific actions inside and outside of the classroom, which help them internalize that academic skills are transferable and go beyond the classroom. “Embodied experiences” can build off creating community & belonging in the classroom as they showcase how academic skills like accountability, preparedness, and time-management impact their lives outside of the classroom.

An example of this is creating moments where students understand the value of learning activities in real-world applications. Asking students to go to the library and meet with a research librarian or physically borrow a book/journal is one small step for them to ensure that they know where the library is but also how to ask for help. Beyond that you can consider doing a small interview a “mentor” assignment where students have to craft an email posing questions related to the field and send that to a potential mentor. Or use the wealth of AU and the larger DC area to assign guest talks/lectures with required notes. If students, see the knowledge they gained from class in intentional experiences it allows them to see the benefit of skills beyond the class.

Teach students both how to read/prepare for class AND why they should want to come to class prepared

Establishing clear expectations for class preparation is not only part of fostering positive academic habits but helps students understand how they can succeed in future classes. By explicitly outlining what it means to be “prepared” for a given course, you can create opportunities for students to transfer these preparation strategies across disciplines. This involves not only teaching students how to engage with assigned readings but also explaining the underlying purpose of these tasks. For instance, you can take time to model effective reading strategies and demonstrate how to navigate the course materials on Canvas, helping students see that assignments and homework serve a broader purpose beyond completion.

Additionally, fostering a culture of active engagement prior to class can enhance students’ investment in the material. Encouraging students to post reflections or questions about the reading on discussion boards before class allows them to begin formulating thoughts and generating discussion points. This pre-class engagement can facilitate deeper understanding during in-class discussions. Alternatively, using tools such as an entrance quiz on the readings can further encourage students to engage with the material before class, reinforcing the importance of coming prepared.

Thinking routines are activities that are designed to make cognition visible to the learner. These activities can be integrated into a classroom and revisited over the course of a semester. One benefit of thinking routines is their ability to support the development of academic habits. If students know that they will be tasked with discussing pre-class reading in a consistent style, they are able to prepare for that discussion as they complete the reading.

Have clear expectations and enforce those expectations

One way to reinforce the importance of students taking ownership of their learning at the college level is to both have clear expectations and to enforce those expectations. It does not serve the instructor or students to not have explicit policies regarding late work or missing class. These policies can be flexible and should be informed by understanding that some situations are outside of students’ control. However, having flexibility is not the same as not holding students to a clear standard. If there are no consequences to turning in work late, students are unlikely to get out of the habit of missing deadlines. Additionally, there are equity concerns when policies are implicit or not universally enforced. Students have different levels of comfort asking for exceptions to rules. Only allowing for exceptions outside of your policy privileges students who know to ask. This type of policy flexibility can increase disparity between students with different levels of fluency in higher education norms. Consider having language in your syllabus/assignment sheet that is open-ended like “may result”. This can set the expectations but also allows for flexibility and is something you can point to throughout the semester. Further, consider setting expectation “reminders” in your lecturers–this can be expectations of where they are at in a given project or asking students to talk about where they are at in a project.

Resources

PZ’s Thinking Routines Toolbox | Project Zero

What to Consider in Late Work Policies | Center for Transformative Teaching | Nebraska

What to Consider in Attendance Policies | Center for Transformative Teaching | Nebraska

Decision Tree: Student Request For Flexibility | College of Arts and Sciences | Nebraska

Scaffolding to Grow Independent Learners

Learning happens when people connect new concepts or behaviors to their relevant pre-existing knowledge or skills. Students learn best when they are actively involved in constructing their own knowledge as they are then able to connect the new material to their existing schemas. However, this is only possible when there is a framework for them to construct the next level from where their current understanding or abilities are and if their prior knowledge is accurate. Because each student enters the classroom with different prior experiences, how students make sense of new information or how strong their foundational skills are can differ. We can purposefully structure courses and assessments to build upon themselves with an end goal of students being more equipped to continue to learn independently. This is often referred to as scaffolding. Skills and knowledge can be scaffolded across courses, usually through the designation of perquisite courses or within a single course.

Scaffolding is a pedagogical strategy that emerged from the field of writing and composition. Scaffolding writing assignments is a strategy of each assessment building on the one that came before it. Rather than assigning one large project at the beginning of the semester, smaller, more frequent deliverables could be required to build into a portfolio of work. The first step might be to participate in an in-class discussion about assigned reading, which could build to submitting a response to the assigned reading before class.

How to do it?

Assess where students are starting from

One of the most important ideas underlying scaffolding as a framework is building upon the student’s existing knowledge and skills. This is only possible to do on purpose when the instructor knows where the students are starting. It is especially useful to measure whether or not students have any misconceptions about the subject matter so that inaccurate information can be corrected early. There are many ways pre-existing knowledge or skills can be assessed. Some departments, like mathematics and second languages, require placement exams to sort students into appropriate levels. Others, like the preforming arts, require auditions. But, if you do not teach in a field with mandatory placement exams, you can integrate this practice into your own classroom at the start of the semester.

Possible ways to assess students’ preexisting knowledge and skillsets can be qualitative, or quantitative, direct or indirect. For example, as the instructor you could introduce yourself with a brief introduction of how you became interested in your field and pose a similar question to the students as they introduce themselves. Or you could use exit tickets on the first day of class where students must respond to a prompt about their prior knowledge before leaving at the end of class. For example, in a religion class, the prompt could be asking the student how they would define scripture. Reviewing these short responses would enable the professor to know how much time should be spent on foundational definitions in the next class. More direct measures would include concept inventories, which are short quizzes targeted at key concepts in the field or live in class polls where you ask students to rate content relevant statements as either true or false. A more in-direct assessment of prior knowledge could look like a self-assessment where students are asked to reflect on their knowledge and skills in related areas. Additional strategies are linked in the resource section below.

The assessment of prior knowledge should be low stakes. Meaning, if a grade is associated with the assessment, it should be based on completion, not on accuracy. It is not fair to penalize students with something that is primarily designed to inform your teaching, rather than measure what they have learned in your course.

Backward Course Design

Backward design is a strategy to develop courses that is focused on identifying the learning objective first, then developing assessments, followed by the content of the instruction. A scaffolding approach to course design can benefit from backward design because it is often easier to identify the necessary skills to successfully complete a final project or exam and then create smaller assignments to develop and practice those skills than it is to start with a smaller assignment and see what it could build.

Scaffold group work

One specific area many students struggle with is working with their peers. Group work is something that can teach important interpersonal skills and enable the creation of more complex deliverables than a student could do alone. However, as students have different levels of interpersonal competencies, group work is often a frustrating experience when there is poor communication and differing levels of commitment to the project.

Group work can be scaffolded, like individual assignments, to allow students to develop interpersonal skills over time with gradually increasing GPA impacts. One way to scaffold group work is to begin by doing smaller projects or in-class activities where students contribute individually to a joint deliverable, but the assessment is pass/fail participation points.

Some examples of in-class activities that can be done to practice the interpersonal skills of working together include:

Jigsaw collaborative learning activities are activities where students are broken into small groups and assigned one component of a topic and then reform into groups with a representative from each component to teach each other. A jigsaw activity requires some careful planning of groups so that there is a component for each, and equal numbers of students in each group so that when they reform there is even distribution across teams. One thing that works well with a jigsaw is breaking down an article into its sub-parts and assigning each group a piece of the article. For example, small groups could specialize in either the introduction, methodology, results, or discussion, but only get the full picture of the research that was done after they come together.

Collaborative slide deck activities are when students are placed in small groups and respond to a prompt by creating a slide in a shared slideshow. This strategy is a way for students to develop a shared resource, have some accountability to complete the in-class discussion activity, and for there to be a record for to review to check students understanding. One thing that can work well with this activity is more open-ended prompts where small groups either propose solutions to a problem or do preliminary research on a topic. There is a lot of flexibility in the prompts that work for this activity, but it does require students have access to a computer during class time.

Scavenger Hunt style activities are ones where students are given a set of tasks to complete during class as a group. Sometimes these activities are used to introduce students to campus resources, but they can also be used to review and synthesize content. While these types of activities can be turned into games with winners and losers, they can also be completion based rather than competitive.

Resources

Scaffolding and Sequencing Writing Assignments | Writing Across the Curriculum

Assessing Prior Knowledge – Eberly Center – Carnegie Mellon University

Assessing Prior Knowledge & Addressing Learning Gaps | Center for Teaching Innovation

Backward Course Design | CTRL Faculty Resources

Supporting Effective Group Projects and Teamwork | CTRL Faculty Resources

Ways to Conduct Team Activities | Center for Transformative Teaching | Nebraska

Conclusion: Setting the tone for future expectations

What is the goal of first-year classes? Why do they matter?

What is done in the first class in the discipline teaches students what to expect in that field, even if you aren’t intending to do that.

Your class might be the first opportunity for students to discover the nuances of their academic discipline in relation to other subjects and disciplines. It’s a chance for them to see how their individual learning fits into the larger community within a specific field. As students enter your class, they are not just learning about a subject—they are learning how to be a student in a university setting, how to engage with their peers, and how to adopt a mindset that fosters both individual and collective growth.

In essence, one of the goals of first-year courses is to offer students a snapshot of the larger university experience at AU, helping them understand how their education will evolve as they move through their academic journey.

How to set the tone

Identify what skills you want students to be able to do in 200/300/400 level classes and see where you can lay the groundwork for helping them get there.

This can be achieved through modeling, reflecting, and reinforcing key skills. For example, model how to approach a reading assignment, including how to ask thoughtful questions, or demonstrate note-taking strategies. During class, reflect on the skills that will be important for success in more advanced courses, such as engaging in class discussions or analyzing complex readings. Reinforce these skills regularly, as they can be built upon in a similar way to content knowledge.

Be open and transparent about how your course fits into the broader academic journey, emphasizing that the learning outcomes in your course are steppingstones toward more advanced work. Make it clear that your course is part of an ongoing process of learning and skill development, and the abilities students develop in your class will be crucial for success in future courses.