1 januari 2025
START Handbook
This open online textbook is one of the results of the Erasmus+ project START (https://supportingstart.eu/), which aims to support teachers who help students transition from high school to higher education. The goal of the handbook is to provide those who teach first-year undergraduate students with strategies and resources to facilitate their students’ transition to higher education. The handbook contains ideas and concrete activities for academics to see how they can help first-year students engage, persist and succeed in higher education. Each chapter represents one of 17 identified challenges teachers experience when working with first-year undergraduate students. The handbook contributors, representing 6 partner institutions, looked into what has worked for them and other academics in relation to the challenges and identified a wide range of resources and pedagogical strategies that could be of help to teachers. Three types of content are proposed: in-depth content, easy-to-use resources and global pedagogical strategy. The handbook can be used primarily by academics who teach first-year students. However, it can also help those facilitating professional development at higher education institutions, since research-based ideas will be contextualised for different disciplines and expressed in language clear to those not trained as educators.
Tracy Poelzer, Melina Solari Landa, Ro Aitken, Jelle Blijleven, Eileen Bowman, Julia Costa Lopez, Rachel Farrell, Marigel Garcia Lozano, Tatjana Hodnik, Ana Jiménez-Rivero, Taja Klemen, Marco Maicas, Alexandra Míguez-Souto, Jake Noel-Storr, Iciar Pablo-Lerchundi, Jakob Saje, Dirk van der Geest