The Blank Page is a magazine dedicated to the publication and support of the writing of first year students (poetry, short fiction and non-fiction), as well as visual art. The magazine is a response to the lack of community and resources available to first year writers at Carleton University. First year is an experience which confronts new students with a staggeringly large number of potential paths, but often no direction. The editors of Blank Page are all writers in upper years and thus understand the sense of isolation and intimidation which young writers experience in the university setting. Writing is an intensely personal experience which can function as a tool for coping with frustration, stress and unhappiness; writing is thus a useful tool for surviving first year.

This website outlines some interesting observations about first-year students and their perceptions about writing. It also suggests some in-class writing activities:

Strategies for Learning & Remembering Student Names

The Art & Science Of Making Student Referrals: Suggested Strategies

1. Describe the goals and services of the referred service. (Don't assume that the student already know its purpose or function.)
2. Personalize the referral: If you can, refer the student to a person (a name) - rather than an office.
3. Reassure the student of the qualifications and capability of the person to whom s/he is being referred.
4. Help the student identify what questions to ask and how to approach the resource person.
5. Make explicitly sure that the student knows where to go and how to get there.
6. Phone for an appointment while the student is in your presence.
7. Walk with the student to the referred person's office.
8. Follow-up the initial referral by asking the student if the contact occurred, how it went, and whether there will be future contact.
9. Praise the student for making the effort to seek support and taking a step toward self-improvement.
10. Follow-up by either letting other FYS instructors know about a successful referral to a campus service (on the Forums section of this site) or, if things didn't go well, by letting the supervisor/manager of that service know about what didn't work.

Adapted from: Cuseo, J. Sourcebook for First-Year Seminar Instruction (Unpublished document).

The attached document is adapted from a quiz on the University of Alberta website. It presents a series of situations to get students talking about academic integrity.

Many instructors struggle to determine how to assess students' participation in the first-year seminar. I got this idea (see attached) from Petra Watzlawik-Li in the Centre for Initiatives in Education. I found it a useful means to have students self-assess their participation at the end of the fall term. They were brutally honest about how they had done - and rather insightful about how to improve. In retrospect, I should have circulated it at the beginning of the semester, rather than at the end.

Abstract for attached article:

The Learning Styles school and the Approaches to Learning school represent two rather different perspectives on the interaction of students with a learning situation. This paper outlines the basic positions of the two schools, and then considers the extent to which it is possible to reconcile them. A possible framework for such a task by Riding (1997) is discussed and areas of commonality are highlighted. Neither school is free from criticism, and a summary of the criticisms of the constructs and the data collection instruments is provided in each case. Finally, research into the impact of the two schools on student learning is considered. Overall it is concluded that investigation of students’ Learning Styles or Approaches to Learning are probably of more benefit to the teacher than to the individual student.