February 2023
Participating in START made me remember my feelings from the first year of study at university. I didn’t feel that anybody cared. With START we would like to show to nowadays students that we do care.
Barbara Modec
As a teacher of first- and third-year students, I soon realized a great difference between them. Since the beginning of my career, I have tried to help students in the transition to the university, but working in the START project has given me a deeper understanding of students’ problems, which has improved my communication with them. The problems of first-year teachers/students have been neglected by most of my colleagues who never meet first-year students. The results of the START project should convince them that teachers can play an important role in the transition from secondary school to university.
Saša Petriček
The first year of college can be a bit overwhelming, as it represents a major life change for most people. First-year students can suffer from homesickness, financial problems, social isolation, extremely poor time management, unmotivated members of group projects, and so on. Since I have been participating in the START project, I became familiar with the different backgrounds of students and the problems they face that can lead to dropping out. Therefore, it is important to address these types of problems by providing them with full support. It is especially important to clarify expectations for student learning and performance, for example, by explaining what is expected of them through descriptions, examples, and feedback on their work. Feedback should not only be critical, but also supportive and encouraging, which could help students adapt more quickly to the new environment.
Taja Klemen
I became interested in the project START, because I teach first-year students and tutor these students. I know that the transition from secondary school to university is an important turning point for them, and I think it is very important that we make this transition as easy as possible for them and not, perhaps out of negligence or ignorance, make it unnecessarily difficult. I thought I knew something about the difficulties that some first-year students have, but in my first focus group interview with students as part of the START project, I quickly realised that things that I take for granted are completely incomprehensible, hidden, and illogical from their perspective. I have therefore already adjusted the way I present the information and hope that the results of the project will convince as many as possible of those who teach first-year students that they can make a big difference by making small adjustments to help their students integrate successfully into university life and study.
Anton Meden
The transition from high school to university is a turning point for many young people, associated with various professional and personal challenges. In the START project, we strive to better understand the challenges that young people face and to develop a supportive environment that will best support young people in their transition to university.
Vesna Ferk Savec
The contemporary social and family circumstances of children growing up are changing rapidly and, together with school, are influencing the “otherness” – and our ignorance – of the knowledge, skills, and personal preferences with which young people enter university. Do we know them and do we take them seriously? In the START project, systematically learning about these changed assumptions will – I hope – enable us to remove unnecessary barriers to students’ successful entry and ensure the quality of their studies.
Janez Krek
Images: INFORMATION DAYS, UNIVERSITY OF LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA
In February 2023, information days were held at the University of Ljubljana where faculties informed secondary school students about the study programmes, they were interested in applying to. Prospective students were able to obtain information about studies and study programmes, and meet representatives of the faculties and academies, as well as upper-year students.
January 2023
On 16 January 2023 we were hosted by our Spanish colleagues at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid for our second START Transnational Project Meeting. Having spent the interim weeks working collaboratively online to give shape and direction to each of the five strands of the ‘Awareness Raising Toolkit’, this was a much-needed opportunity for wider collaboration and critical feedback.
The experience of first year undergraduate students and their teachers is not generic across European third level institutions. There are significant systemic and disciplinary differences in relation to post-primary education and student transition, as well as cultural and linguistic nuances in relation to the wider purpose, and particular practice, of education. While the literature review had already given us a broad foundation for the issues facing first year students and their university teachers, it was through dialogue with our project partners that we were able to fully explore this rich and diverse landscape.
As we worked our way through each of the components of the ‘Awareness Raising Toolkit’ we found common ground amid this diversity, and we were able to consider the benefits as well as the challenges difference brings when considering our project aims to support European university teachers of first year students.
This clarity proved incredibly productive, and we had a busy three days of presentations, critical dialogue, activities and working groups. Our host university, UPM, offered an open session to begin raising awareness of our project with their staff and to hear their experiences of teaching first year students, which gave us the opportunity to share our findings and further reflect on our toolkit.
That so much can be achieved in such a short space of time is a credit to the drive, creativity and commitment of the project participants. The online toolkit is in its final stages, and we are all looking forward to seeing it on our START website soon.
December 2022
Continuing with
the START project and looking forward to the transnational meeting planned for
January 2023 in Madrid (Spain), the team has been working on different topics
and tasks. The focus is on the first result of the project, namely, the
creation of an “Awareness Raising
Toolkit”. This toolkit aims to help academics understand why students find
transition to higher education challenging and why those teaching first-year
students have a special role to play.
For this, five
groups have been working on different aspects:
1.- Galaxies of
challenges: aiming to develop tools that help to raise awareness of students’
challenges among academics teaching first-year students.
2.- Seriousness
of challenges: making academics aware of the seriousness of these challenges.
3.- Awareness of
THEIR students: focusing on academics’ own students and their specific
challenges.
4.- Faculty
developers: creating tools that help faculty developers design teaching actions
and materials to help academics guide their students’ transition.
5.- Academics
CAN: develop specific messages about academics’ capacity in this subject
directed to faculty with different responsibilities in course teaching, course
design, studies program design or to academic authorities.
The meeting in
Madrid will give us the opportunity to share our results, find synergies and to
discuss some of the working groups’ results with first-year students’ teachers at UPM in an open session.
This way, the
next steps for the START project will be established!
November 2022
In the first stage of the project START, the team consulted several sources (research articles, national statistics reports and interviews, among others) to identify the main challenges students face during their first year in the HEI and the impact teachers can have guiding them during the transition. More than 200 quotes from the research literature were analysed to draft the nature of the 4 major challenges students face: academic engagement, university culture, personal and social. Currently, the team is working on the delimitation of each one of them and the interconnection of these categories.
The information collected also reported how academics can positively contribute to students’ transition. They can:
- support the transition through providing explicit rules, creating a supportive environment, giving timely feedback, etc.
- create a sense of belonging, promote resilience and engagement, build community, help navigate “unspoken” rules.
- strongly influence students having direct contact with them, meaningful interactions, positive relationships, structured contact out of the class.
These results will be the framework of the results coming up on the START project.
Having presented our first literature review findings to first-year students’ teachers in Groningen has greatly encouraged the team on the importance of working on this topic.
October 2022
“What Challenges do Students Experience When Transitioning to Higher Education & Why does it Matter?” Learning, Teaching and Training Activity (LTTA1) took place on 25-27 October in Groningen, the Netherlands. Core Working Groups from all START partner institutions met for an intensive 3-day peer-learning activity with the following intended learning outcomes:
1. Articulate challenges students experience when transitioning to HE, comparing local and global research findings with their own experience
2. Identify ways in which academics teaching first-year students can have a positive impact on student transition
3. Encourage academics teaching first-year students in accepting, as part of their professional role, the task of supporting students in their transition to higher education
Professional development sessions organised on October 27th and open to all those working with first-year students at the University of Groningen brought together over 50 participants.
Transnational Meeting 2 (F2F) on October 28th allowed to evaluate this first LTTA1 and plan for next steps.
September 2022
20 September 2022 – Transnational Meeting 1 (online) to discuss the progress towards Result 1 and the draft agenda and preparation necessary for LTTA1.
August 2022
All START Partners start working on the Awareness Raising Toolkit. The first step is to review research publications and existing resources that give evidence-based answers
to the following three questions:
• WHY is transition to higher education (HE) a challenging experience? What challenges do diverse students face?
• WHY does this matter? Why not supporting students in their transition to HE has serious consequences?
• WHY should Academics care? What evidence do we have to say that those teaching first-year students have a strong impact on student transition and can really make a difference?
July 2022
4 July, 2022 – START Partners met online for the synchronous part of the Kick-Off Meeting. The first academic tasks were discussed, and the Communication and Dissemination Work Group established. It was a good opportunity to start getting to know each other and get inspiration for the first academic and dissemination actions.
June 2022
5 June 2022 – Introductory Kick-Off videos shared for the Core Working Groups to watch in preparation for the synchronous session. First (video) introductions shared via a Padlet wall.
