What is this resource?

This First Year Transition (FYT) resource is designed for teaching staff to support student transition to learning at our University. It is based on a project in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and the Faculty of Education. We sought to combine FYT research with staff experience and insights to develop a community of practice, and produce a resource for staff designing and teaching first-year courses. The resource is a series of modules for teaching staff that is organised around key points in the trimester. The first of these modules is below, and underneath it you’ll find links to the remaining modules. The following principles guided the design of the resource:
  • ​Academics have limits on their time. The modules are designed so that engagement with key information and ideas should take no more than an hour per module. Each module has quick, easily implemented ideas that will make a difference. Each module also has resources and ideas that staff can adapt in their own teaching over time.  
  • Our experience of teaching is part of our students’ experience of learning. Supporting student transition seeks to reduce students’ anxiety, facilitate their insitutional literacy and increase their engagement with material we care about and want them to learn. Throughout the project, staff repeatedly higlighted the positive impact that transition initiatives have had on their enjoyment of teaching.
  • Your colleagues are probably your most useful resource.  The most consistent feedback we received throughout this project was that the opportunity to meet with other first year co-ordinators, and discuss ideas and experiences was invaluable. The modules below can be used as prompts in discussions with colleagues about first-year teaching.

Module 1. Manaakitanga: The Context for First Year Transition

​​1.1: Why focus on First Year Transition?
​1.2: What are the implications of NCEA for student transition?
Below is the first in a series of five short videos, in which Dr Mike Taylor summarises and explains the key differences between learning in NCEA, and learning at University, and discusses the impact this can have on students. In the first video, Mike explains why focussing on first year transition is important in the context of NCEA. 
NCEA vs. University: Training vs. Education
The remaining four videos address:
•    Student approaches to learning in NCEA
•    Subject content and what students learn
•    Common mistakes student make in their learning strategies
•    How NCEA can reproduce social inequities in preparedness for University

​You don’t need to be an expert on NCEA to support transition (and not all of our students will have experienced it), but if you’d like a quick explanation of its basic structure, watch this How NCEA Works video produced by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority. For more context and detail, take a look at three short “NCEA Explained” videos that Mike recorded. They cover its origins, its structure, and its curriculum.
​1.3 Transition Pedagogy
Key to this FYT resource is the research of Professor Sally Kift, arguably the leading expert on transition to University in Australasia. Kift’s work places a particular importance on fostering a “critical sense of belonging” (Kift 2015: 54) in all first-year students. To that end, Kift and others have developed a model of Transition Pedagogy that is organised around six First Year Curriculum Principles:
  • Transition
  • Design 
  • Diversity
  • Engagement 
  • Assessment
  • Evaluation and Monitoring

These principles inform all of the modules in this FYT resource. To introduce what they are, and how they might work in your teaching, we have developed this First Year Curriculum Principles outline.  

This video has some excerpts from conversations with teaching staff talking about things they have tried in order to support student transition. Full videos of most of these conversations, along with reflections from other staff, can be found in the modules below.

For more from Kift see:
Kift, Sally. “A decade of Transition Pedagogy: A quantum leap in conceptualising the first year experience” HERDSA Review of Higher Education. 2, 2015: 51-86. 
 
Kift, Sally. “Articulating a transition pedagogy to scaffold and to enhance the first year student learning experience in Australian higher education.” ALTC Senior Fellowship Report. 2009.
 
Kift, Sally. “Don't leave student success to chance - transition pedagogy before, during, and after COVID-19.” Interviewed by Evelyn Levisohn. Studiosity. May 6 2020.

Further FYT modules and resources

​The aim of this first module has been to introduce the context for a focus on transition, the role NCEA plays, and the core pedagogical principles of this FYT resource. The remaining five modules offer practical examples and ideas for incorporating those principles into your teaching. Within the modules are tip sheets, reflections from teaching staff on things they’ve tried, student reflections on their experience of transition, resources to use with students, and other things that you might find helpful in first year teaching.  The modules are designed to reflect the values that underpin teaching at Te Herenga Waka, and are organised to follow the progress of the trimester. These timeframes overlap, and every course and cohort is diifferent, so the ideas within each module can be adapted and used at any time.  
 
The FYT modules are (new modules will be uploaded as the trimester progresses): 
  • Module 1 (this module). Manaakitanga: The Context for First Year Transition.
    The importance of transition, and of fostering a “critical sense of belonging” in first year students.
  • Module 2. Whanaungatanga: Establishing connection (Weeks 1-2)
    Producing inclusive learning communities, and facilitating student connections with each other and with teaching staff.
  • Module 3. Whai mātauranga: Understanding university learning (Weeks 3-6)
    Developing intellectual curiosity by supporting students to understand and value how learning at university works.
  • Module 4. Rangatiratanga: Taking stock and re-engaging (Weeks 7-8)
    Fostering student autonomy through reflection and problem solving.
  • Module 5. Kaitiakitanga: Managing anxiety and seeking support (Weeks 9-12) 
    ​Supporting student well-being during the difficult last third of the trimester.
  • Module 6. Akoranga: Course Design and Assessment
    Designing courses and assessment to scaffold students in their learning.
​This page was last updated March 2022.