First-year seminar instructor experiences: embracing an identity, an autoethnographic case study

Abstract

Scholarship about first-year seminar programs tend to focus on success outcomes related to transition to college, retention, and persistence initiatives from the student perspective rather than the faculty experience. This autoethnographic case study explored two areas of the first-year seminar instructor experience: how facilitating academic-themed, interdisciplinary first-year seminar courses impact faculty perceptions of personal and professional identity and what first-year seminar components help or hinder the FYS instructor experience. This study found that the development of the first-year seminar instructor identity begins during the application process and continues to develop and evolve as an instructor becomes more experienced. Components that help or hinder the first-year seminar instructor experience include the ability to navigate challenging topics in the curriculum well, managing classroom interactions in a positive manner, and the way that the institution supports or does not support first-year seminar instructors. Instructors found increased confidence and self-efficacy when students engaged in classroom discussion positively and when they were able to connect and support students. This study offers suggestions for programs and institutions for supporting instructors teaching first-year seminars including: clarifying the purpose, intention, and goals of the first-year seminar so instructors can clearly articulate that for students, support faculty-student connection by elevating the role of first-year seminar instructors institutionally, creating opportunities for instructors to engage with one another in faculty learning communities and in relation to the campus more broadly, and providing adequate training and support so first-year seminar instructors can successfully support student transition to college.