FYSFaculty Guide

Contents

FYS OVERVIEW

COMMON EXPECTATIONS OF THE FIRST YEAR SEMINAR

What are the benefits of the FYS for students?

EXPECTATIONS FOR FACULTY

A SHARED PROCESS OF INQUIRY

CREATING A CULTURE OF CRITICAL INQUIRY, ANALYSIS AND REASONING

STUDENT SUCCESS AND RESILIENCY

FYS PEER FACILITATOR

HOW PEER FACILITATORS SUPPORT STUDENTS

PEER FACILITATOR REQUESTS

EXPECTATIONS FOR HAVING A PEER FACILITATOR

PEER FACILITATOR LEADERS

PEER FACILITATOR ASSESSMENT

PEER FACILITATOR TRAINING

PEER FACILITATORS AS STEWARDS

PEER FACILITATORS IN BBLEARN

FIRST YEAR SEMINAR SYMPOSIUM

What are the benefits of the Symposium for first year students?

What are the benefits of the Symposium for faculty?

What are the benefits of a Symposium for FYS?

How many FYS Courses will participate in the symposium?

Next Steps for Symposium Participation

FIRST YEAR SEMINAR FACULTY RESOURCES

FYS Website

FIRST YEAR SEMINAR PROGRAM TEAM

FYS OVERVIEW

First Year Seminar (FYS) provides introductory courses that satisfy part of NAU's first year student Liberal Studies requirements supported by the First Year Learning Initiative principles that create a sense of academic community, student success and transition to college life.The classes are small (25-student limit), relatable and fun and are designed to bring students and the best faculty, teachers, and scholars on campus together to explore rich and engaging topics based on student interest and current issues. They also serve to build community and relationships with faculty and peers that endure throughout their university experience.

Our goalsare to provide exciting opportunities in each class for students to think critically, communicate effectively and become a member of a small community of learners, foster a culture of inquiry, creativity and experiential learning for NAU’s students, and contribute to a more inclusive and diverse campusthrough interdisciplinary engagement with a variety of disciplines and perspectives.

Each First Year Seminar course examines a unique topic from multiple perspectives. First Year Seminar students and faculty engage in a shared process of inquiry around a broad, interdisciplinary topic or question of interest andrelevance to diverse interests/audiences.

One of the main hallmarks of the program are interesting academically rigorous small-classroom experiences in which students can interact in a meaningful way with their faculty member and each other, ask questions and build community among their peers.

Most faculty members opt to use peer facilitators in their classroom. These classroom mentors help support student success by being an additional resource for students, by assisting faculty to engage students in the learning environment, and by fostering a sense of belonging through small group facilitation and one-on-one meetings with students.

COMMON EXPECTATIONS OF THE FIRST YEAR SEMINAR

What are the benefits of the FYS for students?

  • Small, interactive classes (25 students or less)
  • Student mentorship and community building from peer facilitators
  • Making connections with faculty and other students
  • Explore meaningful, exciting topics that promote critical thinking
  • Find support and build resiliencythrough academic community
  • Fulfill Liberal Studies Degree Requirements

EXPECTATIONS FOR FACULTY

Faculty are tasked touse a variety of engaging pedagogies to help students make the transition to academic life at NAU by helping students to develop critical thinking abilities, cultivate effective communication skills, and by providing students the opportunity to make connections with faculty and other students to become part of the university and local community.

The First Year Seminar offers a wide array of topics taught by faculty from various disciplines. In order to provide a measure of consistency all classes should:

  • Provide small, high touch, inquiry based engaged curriculum
  • Actively engage students in learning experiences
  • Create assignments and projects that are creative, experiential, theory and skill based
  • Provide opportunities to engage with faculty to help establish a strong sense of academic and community belonging.
  • Promote social interactions and community building among students
  • Effectively utilize co-curricular learning experiences, with learning happening outside of the classroom, on campus and with the local community
  • Check-in with students mid-semester by using “pulse” surveys

A SHARED PROCESS OF INQUIRY

First Year Seminar students and faculty engage in a shared process of inquiry around a broad, interdisciplinary topic or question of relevance to diverse interests/audiences. We ask all faculty to create an environment of critical reflection, analysis and reasoning—effectively involving students in this shared process of inquiry.

In order to provide a measure of consistency all faculty should:

  • Create a sense of inquiry characterized by the exploration of issues, ideas, perspectives and events
  • Introduce questions and problems that are intellectually challenging as well as interesting and understandable to diverse first-year students
  • Take into account diverse student backgrounds and approach issues from a number of perspectives, methods and points of view
  • Acknowledge student current perceptions and misperceptions of topics
  • Create the opportunity for students to discuss and pursue their own questions in relation to the course themes

CREATING A CULTURE OF CRITICAL INQUIRY, ANALYSIS AND REASONING

  • Create assignments that encourage students to critically examine the value and content of inquiry through synthesizing, evaluating, and comparing different points of view and drawing on several sources in constructing an argument
  • Incorporate the larger socio-historical context of an issue so as not be too narrowly focused on promoting a specific movement, ideological plan, or agenda
  • Invite students to challenge their own assumptions and incorporate aspects of complexity to see how different perspectives can yield substantially different interpretations and viewpoints particularly beyond the binary of “right and wrong”
  • Provide students opportunities to seek, engage and be informed by multiple perspectives
  • Create an expectation of identifying, locating and evaluating multiple sources of evidence and information in pursuit of an informed viewpoint

STUDENT SUCCESS AND RESILIENCY

While the First Year Seminar is distinct from NAU’s designated academic skills and transition program, it recognizes that it serves as an academic entry point to entering NAU students and does play an important role in first-year student success and retention. It actively integrates FYLI principals and student success approaches such as small classroom size, early and often feedback, low stakes assessment, with close faculty relationships with student check-ins, community building and a highly engaged learning environment based upon compelling student centered topics. Additionally, many faculty braid a foundation of resource utilization, success strategies, and adjustment and reflection into the curriculum so as to better serve first year student needs

All First Year Seminar sections are asked to do this check-in process. The check-in process is an opportunity prior to mid-terms to take the "pulse" of the class and to check in with the students to see how they are doing in the class, what is working and what is not working and to create a plan for working towards continued student success.

Faculty have the option to work with a Peer Facilitator, who helps support student success by being an additional resource for students, by helping faculty engage students in the learning environment, and by fostering a sense of belonging through small group facilitation and one-on-one meetings with students.

FYS PEER FACILITATOR

A Peer Facilitator is an undergraduate student who supports student success in the First Year Seminar courses through peer mentorship, classroom leadership, and collaborative partnerships with faculty, graduate assistants, and program facilitators. They help create a climate of engagement in the classroom.

Peer Facilitators Can Help You:

  • Actively engage students
  • Create a sense of academic community within the classroom
  • Take into account students’ diverse cultural backgrounds, perspectives, and points of view
  • Promote social interactions among students
  • Maximize student time and create effective topic based approaches
  • Effectively utilize student learning both in and outside of the classroom (co-curricular, university and community supported learning experiences)
  • Give each student the best chance to succeed and setting up the expectations for success
  • Create an environment in which students transition to college life
  • Find support from their academic community

Peer Facilitators are not instructors or graders.Instruction is defined as any delivery of new content, as well as individual delivery of content (without an “instructor” in the classroom).

HOW PEER FACILITATORS SUPPORT STUDENTS

To “facilitate” means to make easy. Peer Facilitators facilitate student success through identifying and helping address any potential concerns around student comprehension or engagement. They can…

  • Engage students in group discussions and activities
  • Monitor participation and attendance
  • Hold office hours or studio hours
  • Arrangetutoring sessions, or study groupsto support students
  • Check in with students via email
  • Communicate with faculty with updates about student success.
  • Foster student empowerment viafacilitating student-led meetings and initiatives
  • Mentor students in building leadership skills
  • Encouragestudents to join campus lectures, films, and events
  • Lead, participate in, and/or monitor online and in-classdiscussions
  • Inputclass participation, attendance, grades or assessment data into BbLearn
  • Assist in developing lesson plans
  • Complete monthly assessments and end of the year evaluations/exit surveys
  • Incorporate their own interests into the class to provide an enthusiastic and inspiring experience for all involved

PEER FACILITATOR REQUESTS

The semester before you are scheduled to teach for FYS, you will receive a link to request your Peer Facilitator. On this Google form, you will indicate whether or not you want to work with a facilitator, and recommend a student for working with your course (if you have someone in mind). This is how the manyof Peer Facilitators are recruited; however, there is a hiring pool of applicants that have been recommended by other faculty, in the case that a faculty member needs a recommendation from the FYS Program Coordinator.

EXPECTATIONS FOR HAVING A PEER FACILITATOR

  • Mentor your Peer Facilitator and meet with them regularly to get feedback from them on the pulse of the course and their own effectiveness as a Peer Facilitator
  • Supervise your Peer facilitator, making sure they know of and attend all required training's and PF Learning Community Meetings, ensuring their hours align with their job description, signing and reviewing their time sheets
  • Evaluate your Peer Facilitator by filling out an end-of-the-semester PF Evaluation
  • Refer your Facilitator to the Program Coordinator for additional support or training if there is a specific opportunity/challenge they need support with
  • Attend the PF/Faculty cross-collaborative training & lunch after the welcome back meeting the week before classes start or arrange to meet with my PF at another time the week before classes start for at least an hour.

PEER FACILITATOR LEADERS

In addition to the duties as a Peer Facilitator, a select number of returning PFs will be given the opportunity to apply for a "mentor-the-mentor" role, where experienced facilitators lead training activities and meet monthly with Peer Facilitators in teams to discuss successes, challenges and resources. These Peer Facilitator Leaders will need additional hours for training development, additional meetings with the Program Coordinator, facilitating meetings with PF Learning Community teams and one-on-ones with PFs as needed.

This position will receive additional hours and will receive a pay increase of $.50 per hour.

Peer Facilitator Leader Position Requirements

•Served for at least one semester as a FYS Peer Facilitator

•Recommendation by FYS Faculty member

•Can attend all training sessions

•Exhibits excellent communication and leadership skills

•Reliable and professional

PEER FACILITATOR ASSESSMENT

At the end of the semester, you and your Facilitator will be sent a Peer Facilitator evaluation form. The first part is a self-reflection for them to fill out and the second part is for you to rate their performance (this can be done on your own or with them as a reflective process).

PEER FACILITATOR TRAINING

All Peer Facilitators will participate in a training program that consists of an online introduction to being a Peer Facilitator and an in-person training, where they will get to meet with their faculty at the Welcome Back meeting and also engage with other Peer Facilitators with varying levels of experience.

PEER FACILITATORS AS STEWARDS

According to NAU Policy,Peer Facilitators are designated within LOUIE and the class buildsas Stewards, whose responsibilities are defined below. Please see for more information regarding designated classroom roles.The steward role should be used by anyone who needs to be identified as having an association with the class and does not fit into the roles of primary instructor, secondary instructor, TA, or grader. Examples are supervisors, coaches, administrators, mentors, etc.

PEER FACILITATORS IN BBLEARN

Peer Facilitators as Stewards cannot grade student work in terms of determining a valuation of performance of assignments. However, they can access the grade book in BbLearn to assist the instructor or department (ex. entering grades or monitoring student success).

Steward may have no LOUIE final grade access, or final grade approval access.

If requested, he/she may also be checked to print in the class search and show as a contact for the class.The check mark will not populate in the EVAL check box for steward but may be checked at the discretion of the department.

In LMS (BbLearn), the steward may view the grade center, grade assignments and discussions, use messages and create/reply to discussions, change tool and course properties.He/she may add/delete/change course content if designer access is requested by the Instructor.

Stewards should not have instructor workloads reported to FAAR.

Peer Facilitators as Stewards cannot teach in place of instructors of record or deliver new course content (introduce new material).

FIRST YEAR SEMINAR SYMPOSIUM

The FYS Symposiumis a FYS student event occurring at the end of Fall semester that honors a wide variety of innovative and creative student work accomplished through investigative projects or creative displays of work aligned to the course objectives through a final product, discussion, presentation, hands-on making, or performance with audience participation.

The intent of the Symposium is to provide a space for students to connect concepts from their course with other FYS topics. This intersection supports the mission of the Liberal Studies Program by encouraging students to think critically, solve challenging problems, and develop skills such as oral communication, public speaking, research skills, media literacy, teamwork, planning, self-sufficiency, or goal setting. These are skills that will help prepare them for the rest of their college experience, modern careers, and adult life.

This type of close engagement gives students a stronger sense of belonging and also contributes greatly to their success. We would like for this program to be the signature experience for NAU’s first year students.

What are the benefits of the Symposium for first year students?

First Year Seminars value collaborative classroom work and interaction with Faculty and as such FYS students tend to be more engaged, self-directed, and persistent in their studies than students who do not take this kind of course. The symposium provides the opportunity to…

  • Practice essential Liberal Studies skills, such as critical thinking, effective oral communication, quantitative reasoning, creative or aesthetic thinking
  • Make connections between their course content and other topics
  • Share learning, lessons learned, interest/inquiry in others’ work
  • Showcase the work they have produced as individuals, groups, a class, or as a collaborative effort between two or more classes.
  • Stand out in the Spring Undergraduate Research Symposium by deepening the concepts from either the Fall FYS Symposium or their Spring FYS Course

Collaboration helps to develop many of the key skills that will be required of students for their future success. Students can develop many of the “soft skills,” or essential employability skills, by engaging in group work and other forms of collaboration.

What are the benefits of the Symposium for faculty?

Determine your students’ learning and proficiency. Symposium projects can be used as a cumulative assessment tool for a final grade orto demonstrate what they have learned over the course of their project. It could also be used as a reflection tool, as well as a way for you to encourage them to make connections beyond their course topic.