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This essay was adapted and excerpted from chapter 4 of From Educational Experiment to Standard Bearer, published in 2022 by the University of South Carolina Press.
First-year seminars have long been known to foster greater student success. For instance, at the University of South Carolina, students who enroll in U101 have significantly higher retention rates from the first to second year of college. I argue that three primary factors contribute to the course-level success of a first-year seminar (and perhaps any college course for that matter): fostering a sense of belonging, identifying and supporting students who need help, and teaching with engaging pedagogies.
Sense of Belonging
Of all the aspects of a University 101 class, building community is arguably the most important. Creating a strong, safe, and inclusive community is essential to a successful seminar, which in turn supports student acclimation and persistence at the University. Community is both the number one reason students take the course and the top predictor of their decision to remain at the University of South Carolina. Students report their most important reason for enrolling is to make friends. With approximately 7,300 first-year students starting each year, UNIV 101 offers a small class (capped at 20) that allows students to make connections with a group of their peers. They also develop a significant connection to at least one faculty or staff member. The peer and instructor interaction within UNIV 101 can make the large university feel small and personal for many students.
Most importantly, community is the number one reason the course works to foster student persistence to the second year. A former colleague of mine, Ryan Padgett, and I used the First-Year Initiative (FYI) data set, a nationally benchmarked instrument, to explore which elements of the course predicted persistence. Responses from the FYI survey were matched with persistence and first-year grade point average from the student data file to explore course impact on these outcomes. The results of the analysis indicated that the number one variable associated with persistence was sense of belonging. In fact, a standard deviation increase in sense of belonging increased the odds of persisting into the second year by 38% (p < .001), holding all other variables constant.
This finding is not surprising given the substantial literature attesting to the importance of belonging. People are not likely to stay in any environment for long if they do not feel like they belong. We often tell instructors that if they only do one thing in this course, it should be to help students make friends and build an inclusive and supportive community. Fortunately, we can accomplish this goal while also achieving the other important course learning outcomes.
Students are more willing to engage with and contribute to a learning environment in which they feel a sense of belonging and where there is mutual respect among classmates and instructors. For a seminar to be truly effective, students must feel encouraged and free to discuss their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.
This is essential not only for helping students establish a sense of belonging and connection with faculty and peers, but also for establishing the classroom as a safe place for honest conversation. This is especially important in a class like UNIV 101 where the content includes topics that are difficult for many of our students to discuss.
Instructors invest time early in the semester to build community. Teaching practices that emphasize discussion and active learning lead students to have conversations with their peers about important socio-cultural and personal matters. Moreover, regular check-ins at the start of class, such as sharing highs or lows for the week, often provide students with much needed affirmation or validation about their experiences. For ideas about how to build community in a classroom environment, I encourage you to read a recent essay a few colleagues and I wrote in Insights for College Transitions, a publication of the National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition.
As Figure 1.1 demonstrates, community building leads to a sense of belonging, which positively impacts student persistence. It also creates an environment allowing for safe and robust discussions that foster student learning. The graphic suggests an iterative relationship between learning and persistence. As students continue to learn, they get more excited for their studies which also leads to persistence. Moreover, if a student does not stay enrolled, the opportunities for learning may be diminished.
Figure 1.1. Relationship among sense of community, learning, and persistence in the University 101 course.
Early Alert – UNIV 101 as the Canary in the Coal Mine
A good first-year seminar will also serve to identify students who are struggling or need help. Student behavior can serve as the proverbial canary in the mine to help us intervene before it’s too late. While many institutions have a variety of early-alert initiatives, as well as people and programs to support students and their success, the UNIV 101 instructor is arguably in the best position to identify problems early and to offer assistance as needed. If a student stops going to class, it could be two weeks before a resident assistant notices that they have not left their room recently. Yet, the UNIV 101 instructor would notice the absence immediately. Missing class, not turning in work, and changes in disposition are signs that allow attentive instructors to intervene early before difficulties mount. The relationships formed between instructor and student not only allow the teacher to identify possible problems, but also lay the groundwork of trust and respect, which may make the student more receptive to offers of help or referral.
Engaging Pedagogy
The third course element impacting the first-year seminar experience is the quality of teaching or use of engaging pedagogies. These courses should not be strictly about information distribution or giving students answers. If an institution is interested in a first-year course to simply inform students of things, having a large number of small sections is both extremely inefficient and ineffective. University 101 is about helping students process their experiences and pulling wisdom from the group (Friedman & Greene, 2020). Thus, the real success of these courses is not so much in what is covered but how it is covered.
Similar to the study by Padgett and Friedman (2010), results from the First-Year Seminar Assessment (formerly referred to as the First-Year Initiative Survey) were used to explore the impact of individual course elements on selected outcomes. These data suggest the number one predictor of overall course effectiveness (which measures the extent to which students enjoyed the class, would recommend to others, and reported that they learned and discussed important topics) is the extent to which an instructor used engaging pedagogies, operationalized as (a) using a variety of teaching methods; (b) fostering meaningful discussion; (c) encouraging students to speak in class; (d) encouraging students to work together; (e) using class time productively; (f) assigning meaningful homework; (g) and incorporating challenging assignments. Thus, given the importance of good teaching to course effectiveness, a significant focus on faculty development is a must for any high-performing first-year seminar. In the end, the process of the course is equally important as the content.
Conclusion
First-year seminars are an important curricular strategy to foster greater student success. But the magic does not happen automatically. Institutions need to invest in these courses to ensure their success — and instructors need to focus on the key ingredients that matter, including building community, identifying students who are struggling, and teaching with engaging pedagogies.
