Schools have implemented the high-impact practice of first-year experience (FYE) courses to assist students with the transition to college. These courses help connect new students to the school with the goal of improving retention. While students in computing majors face the same challenges as other new college students, they also face some…

Institutions are redesigning gateway courses--lower-division courses known to create student success bottlenecks--to influence persistence and completion goals. These initiatives, student success course redesigns (SSCR), are specialized versions of course design institutes (CDIs). This investigation into SSCRs uses content analysis to examine the…

Students' failure is one of the most debatable topics in tertiary education in Malaysia. Failure in certain courses might delay students' progress to graduate-on-time (GOT). This will result in increased cost, time and resources to both the university and student. From an academic perspective, a higher rate of failure will give a negative…

We transformed our first-year curriculum in biology with a new course, Biological Inquiry, in which greater than 50% of all incoming, first-year students enroll. The course replaced a traditional, content-driven course that relied on outdated approaches to teaching and learning. We diversified pedagogical practices by adopting guided inquiry in…

"Avenues to Success in College," a noncredit first-year orientation course, taught study and coping skills, familiarized students with campus facilities, and provided information about drug/alcohol use and other first-year concerns. Students completing the course earned higher average grades, were less likely to experience academic…

An Orientation/Self-Management course was developed at Mercy College, Detroit, to reduce the high attrition rate (95%) among conditionally admitted full-time (CAFT) students, i.e., those admitted with less than a "C" average upon high school graduation. The course focused on the student as an adult, vital, growing, and independent person; the…