11 Learning Objectives: One Student’s Ideas for First-Year Seminar

When you’re in any class you want there to be a learning objective because if there isn’t one, what’s the point of that class anyway? And you definitely want there to be learning objectives in a first year seminar class because it’s a class  that should help with academic skills and make the transition to the campus much easier, as it’s a home away from home. So here are the five most important learning objectives when being in a first year seminar.

ONE: Collaborating with others: Getting to know your fellow classmates is healthy when coming to college, as you get get to know them and their people who you are able to share ideas with. When you’re doing a group project everyone gets to insert their knowledge into the group, giving the others something new to learn.

TWO: Connected Learning: Not only do you show your work to just your teachers and classmates but the outer world where you can receive feedback . Creating a blog or website that shares the information you know to others for them to comment back about what they also know on the subject and can critique you. Helpful for a job someday because these classmates won’t follow you to your future job to give you the feedback you need but your new coworkers will.

THREE: Learning to Engage: Talking to others and sharing what you know with other people, is an awesome thing to do in a class. Your listening to what others have to say about certain subjects and also putting your insight into it too. This is useful when your in your other college classes especially when you need to share your own opinions but it’s also teaching you how to hear the other side, as you can’t always be correct!

FOUR: Develop Academic Survival: Learning how to get your work in on time and passing a class is something you will need to get through college. You’re finally understanding how to check your own grades, learning how to write a paper,  and anything else that can help you survive academically.

FIVE: Research Skills: Almost every class in college is going to have to need some research whether it be for a paper, power point, or project.  In college you will need to understand how to find accurate research and be able to

Three of many skills that all First Year Seminars are should cover are conducting research, writing, and collaborating with others. To maximize student engagement in this course would be to take a group or partners and have them do a project together that they have to use research to do. A project that includes a writing segment like an essay portion so you can get the whole understanding at the end of the assignment.

What do YOU think are the most important objectives for a First-Year Seminar?