33 Simple Strategies for Faculty: A Week-by-Week Resource for Teaching First-Year and First-Generation Students

Book in new condition

I am a professor of computer science at a selective private university in the US. About a year ago I started paying closer attention to the fact that the environment in STEM (both in academia and industry) is not equally welcoming for everyone. I started to make changes to all aspects of my own work: advising, teaching, managing my research group. This book contributed a number of relevant, actionable and well-researched strategies that I am eager to try in my classroom next semester. I really appreciate that each suggested strategy is also accompanied by excerpts from student interviews that motivated that particular strategy. I also appreciate the pointers to academic literature and the explicit explanations of the rationales for the strategies. Not all of the strategies are relevant to the course I teach, but many are. And even though the guide is ostensibly about making the classrooms more welcoming to first-year and first-generation students, I think many of the suggestions are more broadly useful for making our classrooms both welcoming and effective.

Great choice for faculty reading groups; it’s well researched but also approachable. I’ll be recommending this one a lot, I suspect.

Great referral source.

Great!!

I have been working with First Gen and First Year students since 1994, and I am really excited for the great pointers that Dr. Nunn has shared in this book about helping these student populations succeed. She has written a book that is interesting to read and well organized. Great resource for college instructors of all backgrounds!

Really wanted to like this book, and it's ok. A few good ideas but she repeats them over and over.

This book is quick to read and very thought-provoking. Many of my college students are first-generation, and all are first or second-year. Unlike many books on pedagogy that leave you with very little advice on practical application, this book is full of ideas and which ones the author implements in her classes. She gives reasons why you might want to go one direction vs another. Many ideas are results of a research study she performed that included first-year students at a public university and a private university, both of which make efforts to attract a diverse student population. She includes comments from students in the study about their experiences in college, with professors, specific classes, stress and time management, and making friends. I did a lot of underlining and expect to be referring back to it often. She also provides week-by-week ideas that connect well with where you typically are in the semester and what students might be experiencing. I am gratified to see that I use many of her strategies already, just things that felt right for my personality, but I can see many others that will be great additions to my bag of tricks. I plan to recommend this book widely.