Watch the FYT Club Podcast with Cody Canning, First Year Seminar Director, and Dr. Thomas Byers, Northland Preparatory Academy<\/a><\/p>\nThe table below offers faculty basic guidance on the differences between high school and college, including considerations for how to ease this difficult transition.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\t| Topic<\/th> | High School <\/th> | College <\/th> | Considerations<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n |
\n\n\t| Time<\/td> | Time in high school is VERY structured. Bells cue classroom changes, school starts and ends at the same time every day, classes are held at regular times, and even after school activities tend to follow consistent structures.<\/td> | College represents \u201ctime confetti.\u201d New college students have tremendous amounts of unstructured time to \u201cmanage\u201d compared to high school, not to mention irregular class times, new living scenarios, and a free social life disrupts regular sleep patterns, increasing the stress of the first-year experience.<\/td> | Consider making learning experiences as temporally consistent as possible (i.e., create a predictable flow of assignment due dates) and offer grace to students as they adapt to their new time environment.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
\n\t| Autonomy<\/td> | Individual autonomy is limited in high school. Students have comparatively little choice in classes and teachers. It is even difficult for students to choose to disregard their studies, as parents, administration, and other school resources will often mobilize to support and \u201cnudge\u201d students.<\/td> | For the first time in their school lives, first-year students have incredible amounts of autonomy. They choose to go to class, choose their courses, choose their major, and the list goes on. This new freedom can be equally liberating and overwhelming. Many new students will struggle to manage their newfound autonomy.<\/td> | Consider scripting for students good choices, requiring attendance, eliminating \u201cguesswork\u201d as much as possible, and designing learning experiences with \u201cdecision fatigue\u201d in mind.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
\n\t| In-Class<\/td> | In high school, the overwhelming majority of learning happens in the classroom via activities, lectures, and media. Rarely are students asked to absorb material outside of class that won\u2019t be explicitly covered in class at some point.<\/td> | Most of the learning in college happens outside of class via reading and, on occasion, media. Students are generally responsible for all materials presented in class and outside of class in exams, written work, or other assessments.<\/td> | Consider scaffolding first-year students into college by placing as much content as possible in class and directing students to the most essential ideas to be found in readings or media.
\n
\nConsider a low-stakes\/no-stakes assessment that communicates for students the balance of in-class vs. out-of-class materials.
\n
\nThorough and explicit study guides.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
\n\t| Due Dates<\/td> | Of course there are due dates in high school, but often such policies are generous. It is common for struggling students to make \u201cdeals\u201d with teachers to turn in stacks of late work near grade submission dates.<\/td> | Due dates are generally quite firm in college. Commonly, late work is penalized with partial or no-credit. \u201cDeals\u201d to turn in late work are uncommon and generally considered unfair.<\/td> | Consider regularly bringing up syllabus policy regarding late work. Consistent messaging will ease confusion as student transition into college.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
\n\t| Missed Class<\/td> | High schools students can miss class often due to athletics, illness, or family trips. When you\u2019re in class everyday, missing is more common. Moreover, since the COVID pandemic, absenteeism in high school has soared. High school systems and teachers will commonly offer opportunities for students to make up missed work and content without penalty.<\/td> | Missing class in college, while hardly uncommon, carries far more consequences than in high school.<\/td> | Consider regularly messaging the importance of attending class or experimenting with attendance policies that reward consistent attendance. Additionally, consider ways of making class feel more \u201cessential\u201d by avoiding traditional approaches like lecturing on already assigned readings.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |
\n\t| Class Structure<\/td> | High schools commonly make efforts to make the class structures similar across courses. For example, attendance is commonly taken at the same time, assignments are submitted in the same way (online or in paper), and the size and scope of assessments is fairly consistent regardless of the class.<\/td> | Class structure in college is highly decentralized. Often, the customs and structures vary dramatically from course to course. For example, it is not uncommon for students to have five classes that take five different approaches to Canvas design.<\/td> | For new students, consider being sensitive to this challenging landscape by being explicit, thorough, clear, and transparent in course design.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" First Year Together Resources for Teaching This page provides resources on teaching and learning for first-year students and is informed by the First Year Together Learning Community. Mental Health This is a lovely conversation with a university mental health professional with as many questions as answers. Don’t think too much, just enjoy! Watch the FYT […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":5578,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","ring_central_script_selection":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5551","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/teaching-learning-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/teaching-learning-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/teaching-learning-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/teaching-learning-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/teaching-learning-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5551"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/teaching-learning-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5812,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/teaching-learning-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5551\/revisions\/5812"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/teaching-learning-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/teaching-learning-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} |