Building a Freshman
Experience (FOCUS) and
Seminar at UW-Green Bay
Presentation at the 26th Annual Conference
on the First Year Experience
Addison, Texas
February 16-20, 2007
Overview (Andy)
Primary Objective: To develop an integrated
first year experience
 FOCUS
– Collaborative effort between
Academic and Student Affairs
 Freshman Seminar Experience
Common
Lesson project
 Assessment
 Benefits
and Challenges
Development of FOCUS (Brenda)
 Comprehensive/coherent
FY Experience
 Year long series of activities
 Collaborative
 Co-Directed
by Academic and Student Affairs
 Planning done by offices from around campus
 Increased student involvement and
development (Ambassadors)
 Major
component missing
The Freshman Seminar Experience
(Scott)
 First-semester
freshmen
 Existing gen ed courses (cap @25)
 Content based courses
 Classes meet same day/same time
Objectives of the Freshman
Seminar: (Scott)
 Engagement
 Critical
thinking/Problem solving
 Communication skills
 Creativity/Innovation
 Exploring value systems
 Information literacy
 Interdisciplinarity
Mechanisms for Achieving
Objectives: (Scott)
 Interaction
with faculty (both at FOCUS and
throughout semester)
 E.g.,
Informal advising opportunities
 Written
work – at least 25% of course grade
 FYE Film Series
 Required
annotated bibliography
 Co-Curricular
activities
 Diversity, Leadership,
 E.g.,
Health
Sexual Assault, Steps to Make a Difference Walk,
“Inside Iraq”
 Common
Lesson
Common Lesson Plan (Denise)


Wanted a group project including all classes that was
interdisciplinary in nature
Objectives of Lesson Plan:




Interdisciplinary problem solving
Active Engagement
Communication skills
University of Tra-Eh
Set up:
In the year 2018, the world has discovered that our sun is actually one of a
binary star system. Upon exploration of our “sister” solar system, it becomes
clear that at least one planet, coincidentally the third, has the ability to support
life as we know it. A “first contact” mission finds a thriving population and it is
determined that the two societies need to share information about their worlds,
history, cultures, knowledge, etc. The Earth governments decide that the best
way to do this is to establish a university on Tra-Eh that will enroll students and
teach them about Earth.
Assessment of Common Lesson
 Interdisciplinary
problem solving
 30-48%
reported the lesson helped their
understanding of interdisciplinarity
 Active
engagement
 Responses
supported more engagement
 65% stated it allowed them to apply knowledge to
problems
 Communication
 >68%
skills
skills
stated the lesson promoted communication
 Correlation
objectives
between perceived achievement of
Assessment of Freshman Seminar
Experience (Regan)
 What
are we hoping to find?
 Research Design
 Different tools
 Different Comparisons and Analyses
Seminar Students Score Higher on
NSSE Items
Benefits and Challenges (Regan)
Benefits:
 Greater engagement
 Orientation/Class
connection
 Classroom dynamics
 Student-faculty
relations
 Better
meets the
objectives of FOCUS
 Faculty development
Issues:
 Use of existing
courses
 Better connection of
common activities
 Student peer
comparisons
 Expansion