Education Commons^™

Aligning First-Year Academic Learning Experiences At A Small Liberal Arts University, Robyne Hanley-Dafoe

The Dissertation in Practice at Western University

First-year academic experiences in post-secondary education have been widely studied (Pampaka, Williams, & Hutcheson, 2012; Kahu & Nelson, 2018). Rapid expansion of student enrolment has impacted the scope of teaching and learning practices at universities (Zepke, 2018; O’Brien & Iannone, 2017). Much of the focus has been on student success, satisfaction, and retention; however, Brownlee, Walker, Lennox, Exley, and Pearce (2009) suggest that more research on the student learning experience is needed. This organizational improvement plan (OIP) expands on this idea to include pedagogy and course design, as they impact student learning, while exploring institutional identity. Using Bolman and Deal’s …