START self-assessment tool
Welcome to the “How good am I at supporting student transition” START self-assessment tool!
If you are teaching first-year undergraduate students and want to become even better in supporting diverse students in their transition(s) to higher education, this tool is for you!
START Self-Assessment Tool offers two paths you can follow on this reflective self-assessment journey.
- Path 1 focuses on actions that can have impact on the highest number of challenges students might be experiencing.
- Path 2 starts from the challenges and asks you to first think of those that might be most relevant for your context; you select the challenge and then reflect on how much your current approach to teaching is in line with what our respondents said best first-year teachers can do.
Whichever path you choose – you can also follow one after the other or come back as many times as you want to – we hope that this reflection – and the actions you will engage in as a result – will help you become even better in supporting students in transition to higher education.
How & what for was START self-assessment tool developed?
The development of the self-assessment tool has been guided by valuable insights from focus groups with students, academics, faculty developers, and other higher education professionals.[1] These contributors shared their experiences and observations about what successful academics do to effectively support diverse students transitioning to higher education. They described the qualities and actions that make these academics particularly effective in this role. Our goal is to highlight these best practices and encourage everyone to continuously grow in their ability to support students. We understand that everyone is at a different stage in this journey, and our tool is designed to help all academics, regardless of their current level of experience, to enhance their skills and better assist students during this important transition.
Data from the focus groups were analysed in alignment with the START Categories of Challenges – since the idea of these tool is to help you:
- Link what you are already doing or adapt your practice as a teacher/instructor/lecturer/teaching assistant/the person teaching first-year undergraduates, to be responsive to the challenges students might encounter in their transition to higher education.
- Identify which of your actions can help students who are struggling with which (type of) challenges.
- Pay more attention to actions that might help students to better deal with particular challenges – those that are most relevant in your context and/or in a particular student group you are working with.
Who/What else is the START Self-Assessment Tool intended for?
While those teaching first-year undergraduate students at higher education institutions across Europe are the main intended users of the present self-assessment tool, it is hoped that two other target groups can make good use of the tool in order to provide institutional support to those who teach first-year students: (1) faculty/educational/staff/academic developers, & (2) those in charge of rewarding excellence in teaching.
1 Guiding professional development strategic planning
Firstly, persons in charge of designing and facilitating professional development (PD) activities focused on learning facilitation can use the START self-reflection tool in strategic planning of PD activities offered at their higher education institutions (HEIs). As of now, PD tailored to the needs of those teaching first-year undergraduate students – students in transition to higher education – is all but nonexistent, at least in Europe. This lack of support was the very reason for setting up the Erasmus+ START project: a HEI that strives to become inclusive needs to offer support to those teaching first-year undergraduate students – to those whose task it is to help diverse students develop competences required to succeed in higher education. HEIs that want to widen access and welcome diverse students into HE, need to offer PD activities tailored to this particular teaching & learning context. These PD activities should help academics learn how to incorporate support of diverse students in their transition to HE into how first-year courses are organised and taught. Besides, academics who work with first-year students might also benefit from learning to conceive their role as that of ‘responsible for making newcomers feel welcome and equipped’ to enter the programme, discipline/area of studies and HE culture more broadly. The START self-reflection tool pinpoints specific aspects of teaching that are particularly relevant in the context of working with first-year undergraduate students. These are learning outcomes in terms of inclusive teaching excellence in the context of teaching first-year undergraduate students. Offering PD activities that can help academics to achieve these learning outcomes is one concrete way to show that commitment with widening access and achieving inclusiveness is taken seriously by a HEI.
2 Guiding HEIs efforts to incentivise and reward excellence in supporting student transition in core curriculum activities:
Another way to support those teaching first-year undergraduate students in their efforts to become better in supporting diverse students in transition is through incentive-&-reward schemes. Such schemes will send the message that academics’ efforts to help diverse students develop competences required to succeed in higher education are valued. Putting such schemes in place will help make visible the special role those teaching first-year undergraduate students need to play for a HEI to fulfil its promise of a wider access and inclusive HE. More structural consequences – e.g. (1) articulating the associated workload and accounting for it explicitly in work contracts of those teaching first-year students, or (2) conceiving specialisation in teaching first-year undergraduates as one of possible career paths at academia, or even (3) ensuring that learning outcomes of first-year courses claim space & time for this essential learning – are also linked to this first step of acknowledging that those teaching first-year undergraduates have a special role to play in making HE inclusive and truly accessible to diverse students. The START self-reflection tools helps to articulate the competence profile of academics working with first-year students, creating a solid foundation for giving special attention to competences required to achieve excellence in teaching first-years. This, in turn, is a necessary starting point for developing and implementing holistic – inclusive-&-effective – policies for professionalisation of higher education teaching.
[1] More about the sample: The data was collected in France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia & Spain. Respondents came from 4 categories: (1) 1st and 2nd year undergraduate students, (2) academics teaching first-year undergraduate students, (3) faculty/educational/staff developers – persons who work in higher education institutions and whose task is to support academics in developing as experts in teaching/promoting learning, (4) other higher education professionals who support students in transition to higher education and know what academics can do to help students in transition. The data was collected through focus group discussions (23 in total), which were recorded, transcribed and analysed by the project team from the same five countries.
