1. First Year Support Strategies (FYSS) portal
a practical resource package for staff teaching first year students
Dr Ann Luzeckyj (developed with Andrea Rankin)
Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching Flinders University

2. Background
In 2014 I conducted a survey and interviews with staff teaching first year students – identified a range of issues:
awareness of issues facing first year students – variable
access to professional development for staff teaching/working with first year students – variable
wanted centrally located, accessible resource which provided a consistent message

3. The FYSS portal
The First Year Support Strategies portal (devt. began 2015) includes resources and activities for staff which are:
scaffolded
innovative
collaborative
diverse
Donskoy, Wikimedia Commonns

4. Provides numerous paths
The FYSS portal provides pathways to:
First year support strategies site (LMS)
First year ‘mock’ topic site (LMS)
Blended topic starter site (LMS) (fully online site under development)
FYCoP site (LMS)
Inspiring achievement in first year university students (university website)

5. Relevance to CAULLT
The First Year Support Strategies portal provides opportunities to:
address concerns regarding staff access to PD and understanding of diverse learning needs of first year students
demonstrate and apply first year L&T principles (in context)
develop a cohesive look and feel to LMS sites
support institutional use of learning analytics
not LMS specific (although we use Moodle)

6. Points for reflection How helpful do you think this portal is?
Could elements of this portal be useful to your institution?

7. The portal (open access)

8. Questions ?