- Welcome to our session on supporting student transition to university and thank you for joining us in what we know is a very busy and stressful time for you all. On the conference website, in addition to this recording, you'll be able to access the full slide pack, which will allow you to click on any of the links and resources we've highlighted and spend more time reviewing them in detail. First, a few introductions to our speakers. I'm Dr. Eleanor Parker from the University of Bath. Having worked in the UK higher education for around 10 years, my current role is in our Skills Centre which supports student transition into, during, and out of their programs. For developing their mathematical, academic, foreign language, and English skills. I've worked with a number of other parts of the university that support transition and well-being, and I've seen firsthand how students move from their secondary education into our environment as a member of academic faculty at the University of Oxford. Over to Laura. - Hello, my name's Laura Drinkwater. I'm the regional manager for UK International and Europe students and the University of Exeter. I've worked within the university recruitment sector for, coming up for five years. Initially within UK student recruitment and supporting the widening participation work that the university has done. But recently, last year, moved over into our international student recruitment team. So I've experienced supporting students through that transition from school to university, both from UK based students and now from the international perspective. And helping them to access the university provision to help with that transition as well. I'll pass you over now to Alberto. - Hello, everybody. My name is Alberto Demo. And hi, I've been working at the University of Greenwich for almost four years now. In the last two years I have been the international recruitment officer for UK International and the Americas at the University of Greenwich. Together, with the rest of my team within the International Office, I support and guide students from over 160 countries who have made the UK and Greenwich their study destination. - Okay, so over to our learning outcomes for the session. We're going to look at a number of different challenges in transition for international students. We're going to take a brief look at research on what makes a transition successful. And some examples from our own practice. We want to leave you, at the end of the session, with some ideas of particular areas to explore with your students, both those looking to come this year and in 2021. We'll be drawing on practice from a variety of UK universities and we do realize that this year you, your students, and their families will be very anxious about what kind of start and what kind of transition they will have in the autumn. We've recently seen from some data released by UCAS that 2020 entrants are most concerned about missing out on the real university experience, about this idea of online learning and how they'll cope with it, accessing university support, and being at a disadvantage academically. These and many other areas key in what universities are doing to think about that transition provision at the moment. To reflect our current situation therefor the session will draw from this years outbreak context and from other more general, ongoing transition support. Over to Laura. - All students can experience challenges as they progress from their school studies to university. For international students considering studying abroad for the whole of their university level studies, often in a second language, really does demonstrate a determination to succeed. The transferable skills that these students gain from the process, from independence and flexibility, to building on their communication skills often helps these students progress onto the career pathway in life that they really hope to lead. So before we talk about some of the transitions issues that students may face, it's important to say that your students may or may not experience any or all of these. And they may find there are other challenges that they experience in studying abroad at university. Support is in place at universities to help with this process and we'll give you a little bit more information about that later on. So whilst there are challenges for all students in this transition, for international students, some of the ones that may be the biggest ones are listed on here. So for an example, the change in expectations of level of support versus the independent study. So particularly from a supportive school environment to moving towards more independent focused studies, as well as those students who may now be experiencing online learning through their school studies at the moment, this may have already been a little bit of a challenge for students. So moving from that supported learning style in school to more of that demand of independent study. So support is there in the form of things like personal tutors, office hours, but it often needs to be reached out for by the students rather than possibly being handed out, which is what they might be more used to in a school-based environment. The cultural and social transition and how students might face this and work with this in an online environment is also one of the challenges that may become into play a lot more this year too. So changes in the students cultural environments and adapt into these changes is an important part of that transitional experience. And dependent on the student's country that they have been living in or coming to the university from, they may experience this transition to a greater or lesser extent. Trying to adapt to cultural changes in social settings, potentially through an online learning process may be one of those biggest challenges that students face this year. Social and cultural experiences and nuances may be very different in a post COVID-19 world. And so how universities and other industries adapt to things like social distancing may increase the impact of this transition experience for students as well. Alberto, apologies, Alberto, there's a couple more on here to go through. - Yeah, so as you may know, university-level academic skills include critical reading, writing, and problem solving. One of the biggest leaps that some students find is the movement to studying and writing at university level. Students who have experienced things like the extended project qualification or the extended essay as far to their international baccalaureate diploma have already started that transition to academic writing styles and often provides a useful bridge for students from schools as the inter-university level studies. Structuring essays through destructuring an essay question can be very new experiences. And if in a second language, it can be challenging. University support is there to help students with this transition. In terms of changes to physical environment, traditionally this is always been potentially one of the biggest hurdles international students may face, moving to an entirely different country, however many miles away from home and even changes in the places students go to study moving from perhaps smaller rural lifestyles to living and studying in central London at a city-based university. Or perhaps the opposite, traveling from a big metropolis to studying at a small campus university such as University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Adapting to these physical changes and often cultural and social changes too, may be a hard element for your students. It's very much that stepping outside of the safety net. The mental health of the student is also very important factor to bear in mind, depending on the characters background and previous experiences new students may react to new situations in different ways. And often these struggles are not immediately apparent or voiced. Homesickness can many times be cause for anxiety and depression, as well as feelings of loneliness and alienation. Many times international students find themselves confused with the cultural norms of their host country. Such culture shock often then leads to reduced social interactions and therefore an amplified feeling of isolation. Of course, different levels of homesickness vary depending on the student's country of origin and where cultural disparities may be more pronounced. A lack of contacts in their host country can also contribute to these feelings, which is why it is important for the students to be given the opportunity to network before arriving in the UK. What universities can do to facilitate this will be explored more in depth later on. But this is not a limit or an exhaustive list of transition issues that students may face. But it is likely to be ones that you have found your own students experiencing in the past during that transition to university. This year, some or all of these may still affect your students, but perhaps in different ways. If university is taught online to start with, students expecting or looking forward to that change in physical environment may be more affected by learning online, et cetera. We hope to provide some practical advice about supporting students through that transition process later on. - There's a huge and growing body of evidence on what makes this transition that we've been talking about effective or successful. And crucially, in relation to what Alberto was saying, what can we do to make sure our students feel like they belong in our communities, especially for our international students. At Bath we use a particular model based on research from Australia called the Five Senses of Student Success. This outlines what is important for students to feel satisfied and engaged by their academic program and their broader experience. And some of you may have come across this model before. Looking at the research in this area helps us to think about the reasons students might consider leaving their program and what might make them more likely to stay. Reflections which we think can be really helpful to feedback into your considerations in the guidance environment. This model, which I'll talk through shortly, aligns with our own research at Bath. The very small number of students who leave their programs, in our case it's only around 2%, will cite things like isolation, a mismatch in expectations, or academic issues as the primary reasons for doing so. This model informs our work with schools and applicants in areas like induction, peer support, skills development and on the academic side, in some of the ways we talk to academic staff to get them to think about this student transition. And quite practically in the way we have reviewed some of our curricula in particular academic courses. So we'll look now at the model in more detail. So first, capability. This is about students having the academic confidence and capabilities to excel as a university learner. As a particular example, do they understand what's required from a good essay? Do they know what appropriate conduct in a laboratory setting at the university level is? Can they understand and give feedback? And do they feel confident to do so in this different educational environment? Feedback might have taken a different role in the culture, or education, or setting they were in before. These kinds of things become particularly important for international students who studied lots of different qualifications where things like academic success have been framed potentially quite differently. Students feeling capable, and this feeling increases, when they feel they have a role to play in shaping their learning. So this could be through a student society or being on a student council, for example. Second, purpose, this is about a student's professional and personal goals. And things like how do they develop their sense of identity in relation to the subject their studying. Particularly important for subjects they might not have studied before. As an example, in an early assessment we might ask students to reflect on the ethical role of an architect, maybe an aspect of that profession that they haven't thought about before. So, how does their program and our wider support structures help them to identify and meet those goals that they have. Resourcefulness, this is about how students seek help and build that inner resilience. And also how they work out how to balance their time across lots of different commitments. Connectedness, this means the relationships between students, so peer-to-peer engagement, between staff and students, and how they come to feel connected to our overall institution which is especially important this year, this belonging digitally we're all thinking about what that looks like and planning for that. Finally, culture. This is where students feel they understand what does my university stand for, what does it think is important, and where does any of this sit with my own value system. An example would be how do we introduce to students expected behavior in particular environments, both academic and otherwise? And another area, which in our experience, requires really careful intercultural exploration is academic integrity or how students use sources and reference the worlk of others. Because we know that across cultures and educational systems there can be some really key differences there that we need to explore carefully with our incoming students. Culture is right in the middle of our model, the students really get a sense of this culture from the other four senses. And in fact they get a sense of this culture or institution from every single interaction we have with them, from before they arrive right through to when they graduate. In order for these areas in summary, one of the really key things is about us working hard as universities to clarify expectations for students and working with them, especially through things like our international associations to work out what might be stopping particular groups of students engaging. We'll now look at some more concrete examples of transition support starting with my own institution, the University of Bath. So all UK universities have support for international student transition. Sometimes it might be owned by one team, but more commonly will work across teams and with our student associations or student unions to deliver this. And this work goes far beyond individual contacts that you might have with international office teams. What we're trying to do in the following examples is give you a flavor of the range of transition support that's happening in different universities, both in our emergency context and more regularly. To start with here at Bath, supporting student well-being, supporting our students to succeed, and hoping that they come to feel that Bath is a place they can belong is really important to us. In addition to the areas that you might be more familiar with are dedicated recruitment teams, admission teams, and immigration support, there are lots of other people around the university who support transition. And here are some examples from that wider provision. Through our skills support we really focus on building that student academic capability and resourcefulness or how to access support that we were talking about in the model. Before they arrive we've got a MOOC for schools on developing project skills, one of a number in the sector and that focus on this area. And as Alberto said, this is one of the really key things that helps students to focus on that bridge to higher academic study. In addition we have a range of current student support for skills development across a number of areas. As one example from this year, recognizing that students are going to have quite a big gap in their formal study, one of the areas and skills we're looking at is students mathematical abilities, skills, and confidence. Especially given that they're going to have had that gap in structured learning. How can our Skills Center work with our academic departments and with the incoming students to learn more about where their gaps in confidence, knowledge, or skills might be and how can we as a university in the coming months help them to practice those skills to feel like they could enter the first year with greater confidence. We work, as every university does, on a variety of approaches to induction, and one of the ways we do that is in a digital leaflet that we send to students before they arrive called Student Welcome, which has dedicated content to really address needs of international students. And this whole induction package is very much framed around and geared towards addressing all of the five senses we've talked about. We recognize that students talking to other students, both in their decision-making process and when they arrive is really vital. Every new first years student at the University of Bath is assigned a peer mentor who is a student in a higher year on the same or similar subject area. And working with schemes like this and our International Association help our international students to be able to ask those questions from each other and learn from each other rather than perhaps from a more formal role. In our student services well-being support we have all of the usual in-person support that you might expect from a university but I thought I'd highlight something a little bit different. Other things we've realized is that there can be quite significant cultural barriers to international students disclosing mental health concerns and so we've been thinking quite carefully about how to diversify the support that we offer. So there's a lot of online self-help tools and also a new pilot this year where we've partnered with an external agency to offer online emotional counseling, including with interpreters in different languages to try and get around some of these cultural barriers that we know exist, especially in the area of mental health. This briefly then in terms of COVID-19 specifically, like many teams in the UK, we're all working very hard and have been putting a lot of our support into the online environment. A couple of examples from us, we've got new online resources for schools and plans for an online summer school for year 12 students, open to international students this summer. Our courses that help students develop their English before they arrive are already underway online. And we're really interested in developing that idea of belonging from now on and across the summer. Various teams have also been putting their skills development resources online and some particular examples are additional resources for student anxiety, especially to reflect their current concerns of COVID-19, as well as a brand new kind of micro-site on our website to address this transition to studying online which we've created very quickly with a number of different services with our students. Over to Laura. - Thanks Eleanor. So at the University of Exeter supporting our students is one of the most important elements of the university. So this support throughout the journey process, be that students starting to consider options through to applying and ultimately coming to university and progressing through their degree, we want to make sure that support is there throughout. At the moment, the impact of COVID-19 has meant that a variety of support and provision that usually takes place in-person or in school throughout that considering university and application process is now moved to an online place. But hopefully this is something that will be more effective longer term as well and really mean that international schools and students more widely are able to access that transition support. And that might be anything from online budgeting sessions through to subject specific content and academic support. I'm just going to pick out a few examples from the ones I have on here and relate them back to how they fit with the Five Senses of the Successful Transition. I think it's a really good model that Eleanor shared and really does fit with building up that student experience and providing that culture around everything. So for students considering university within international, considering university within international recruitment at the University of Exeter we do look at opportunities for academic links and involvements as part of visits into regional locations. And this is sort of been replicated online over the past couple of months as well. Where possible, we offer active, engaging taster sessions in different subject areas and sometimes in subject areas that are perhaps a little bit more unknown, so things like renewable energy or topics that students haven't necessarily already accessed as part of their curriculum. And this helps to give students that sense of capability through participation and contribution to the sessions, as well as supporting those students and gaining that academic confidence in their subject area. Knowing that they have the confidence to progress onto university is really one of the things that makes these sessions very rewarding. In the past this has been done in person, and I do think this is one of the best ways to make use of these sessions, but as we're adapting to COVID-19 environment, access to those online tasters is available to them too. So later on there's a link to some useful resources, I put on there Discover University which is one of our new Facebook pages to help offer some of those academic taster sessions for students considering university, but also information guidance too. So with online elements being prevalent over the last couple of months, ways to support student transition has also included our regional team webinar sessions. And these are drop-in webinars for current offer holder students and moving forward for prospective students from countries around the world. Now this is very much aiming to develop that sense of connectedness that was mentioned in the Five Senses. So developing things around staff-student relationships as well as that student-to-student relationship as well. The sessions have got a short update about what's going on in the current university sector, about what's happening at the University of Exeter. And then it's very much open and handed over to the students for question and answers and engagements between them as well. This really means that students can get answers to their queries and worries, as well as build those links with other potential students as part of the chat function that often you will have used in your own webinars and online engagements. When students arrive at university there's also support in accessing things like free in-sessional English support as well as academic skill support. And this is to help with that transition to university level academic skills. And that support is continued throughout their degree. So these support services, which previously have been delivered in person, but there are a number of online resources that have already been created that students are able to access, really help to link with that sense of purpose around personal development for students and discipline engagement as well to help students through that successful transition. So those are just some of the examples about transitional support and how it fits in with the research that Eleanor has discussed. Supporting students through this transition is really important and working together from both the school and university perspective means that support is there to help address some of those challenges and issues that we've already mentioned earlier on. Making sure that students have got that progression and ability to enjoy that pathway really means that they're set up in the best possible way to move forward and progress well in their degrees. I'll pass you over now to Alberto. - Thank you, Laura. So reflecting on what has been outlined by Eleanor and Laura, we at the University of Greenwich understand that particularly for international student, the decision to study overseas is one that's often contemplated for several years before actually registering on-campus or even before deciding to apply. While in the modern age information and guidance is available virtually, building and maintaining relationship with schools across the globe is paramount to you successfully offer the level of personal counsel to the students that are looking to relocate to a different country for their studies. Part of what universities such as Greenwich do is make sure that applicants feel part of the community and get the opportunity that they need to build connections and get familiar with their new reality before they arrive on campus. So things like social media Q&As, live webinars, interviews with current students, offer holder events, and alumni events while in country are all important towards a smooth and worry free transition to the UK. Academic webinars are also crucial for the incoming students to get to know their professors and their teachers before teaching begins. A number of free online courses developed by the University of Greenwich are available to enable students to prepare as best as they can for the new chapter of their lives. Planning my future is an engaging and fun way for school and college students to explore and learn about skills and employability. It has been designed to encourage learners to reflect on their own career interests and how their personal characteristics are suited to a chosen career. The Independent Learners Toolkit is an online game experience that will help raise students awareness of the independent nature of student life. Before they arrive on campus, international applicants are also invited to join Greenwich International Welcome Moodle Program which is an online course that students can access virtually. The course is designed to tell students everything they need to know about living and studying in the UK. Guidance is offered on the things that they need to do, give them advice about living in the UK, and help them make the most of their time at the university. This includes advice on travel and transport, money and banking, tips about London, dos and don'ts for students the F4 visas, what's on freshers week and much more. A forum is also included where new international students can make friends and meet other students before they arrive. Once term starts, students will also have access to a range of services in support of their well-being, like Laura and Eleanor mentioned earlier, such as the International Student Advice Center who helps students with personal matters such as opening bank accounts, using the NHS, navigating a transition, and homesickness. An Academic Skills Centre, a team that help with finance and budgeting and Career and Employability Centre. - Okay, so moving to the final section of our session today we want to give you some ideas of how you can support your students to reflect on the transition to higher education. And again, like with the transition challenges this is by no means an exhaustive list, just a few ideas to explore whether they'll work in your context and with your communities. For 2020 entry, one of the most fundamental things, almost before any of the other academic or procedural concerns is really encouraging students to focus on their well-being, their mental health, and on trying to cope with this quite frankly, potentially quite traumatic transition that we're all experiencing. Some of the ways you can do that is through structured resources, many of which your schools and colleges and other associations are already promoting and probably already using, but in the UK it's worth looking at set of resources from Student Minds. They publish resources on transition specifically and they've also got some new content really acknowledging the particular anxieties of the COVID-19 outbreak. In this time it's never been more important for students to disclose any difficulties they have to universities, that's important every year, but especially this year as we've moved our varied support services online. We're really keen to make sure that we know everything we need to know about what the students needs are going to be as they come into our program, so do take up those opportunities as outlined through communications to you about how you go about disclosing, it's never too late and it's always really, really helpful for us to know. On the academic side, if your students are in the headspace to want to engage that, and they've got the space, and time, and facilities to do so there's a huge range of, a growing range of online resources via academic taster sessions as Laura's mentioned, some MOOCs, links for which we've got later on, but also individual institutions are very much partnering with lots of academic departments to get this sort of material out there. Where an academic department might have already communicated with your students about pre-reading, or key concepts, or ideas that might be covered in the first year, again if your students feel up to it that's the kind of activity that they could be engaging in this summer. Because it's such a dynamic situation at the moment and we're all developing new resources every day, every week one of the best pieces of advice we would have is to follow universities and UCAS on social media. There's an increasing amount of student-led content, be that Q&As with ambassadors, short videos to encourage students to think about what studying that subject is like, and we're really aware that that student voice, that peer-to-peer interaction's really, really vital at the moment. We're also working across all those online resources to reflect the fact that not everyone will access them at the same time, so you'll see that some universities have very much gone for a combination of live Q&A may be relevant to the particular time zone or country that you're in, but also content that could be downloaded and digested at different paces. Because everyone's got different resources and different time constraints, especially at the moment. Laura's got a few more ideas. - I think that is some really good points there and as well as that, on that practical elements at the moment doing things and getting up and away from the screens is also potentially a good way to help with that mental health space too. So things like learning how to cook a meal, you might want to use, students might want to use sort of tutorials online and workshops online about how to do this, but getting some staples under their belt might, again, help them with that transition process into being a bit more independent potentially, not just being able to cook scrambled eggs on toast or whatever is their preferred toast topping, as such. There's also a lot of support available from universities and I would encourage you as teachers and advisers to reach out to universities where you know your students are progressing on to you and look for opportunities around support in that transition. So expectations in reality, and also those sort of student voices too. You might want to get student alumni back to speak to your students virtually or you might want to look at seeing whether there's opportunities to set up student panels with current students. So there's certainly lots of options there to help with that transition at the moment. And like Eleanor said, particularly that building relationships and student-to-student approach is one of the best ways for students to feel engaged and encouraged into their potential university they're looking at. MOOCs have been mentioned and certainly they're definitely worth looking into and offering up as links or as options for students to further help develop those digital or academic skills. Again, if that's something they really feel like they want to continue with too. So those are just some of the things, perhaps, that are more timely at the moment as students are progressing on into 2020. Alberto's got a few more things to do with 2021 entry, so year 12 or equivalent students at the moment. - Thank you, so yes, Laura and Eleanor have shared some really interesting ideas on supporting students entering higher education this year. With regards to next year, what is it that school teachers and councilors can do to ease and reflect on their transition to higher education? Specifically for students starting in 2021, it is important to grow them familiar with the idea of studying overseas and provide them with the initial guidance to make a researched and informed decision. Free resources such as MOOCs are available online to first of all help the student identify what their aspirations and passions are, as well as any gaps in skills. University led and guidance sessions are designed to help students match their passions with their most suitable program of study on offer. College and school liaison staff at the university can also provide a wide range of advice regarding studying overseas in general and often offer this in various forms such as online campaigns, webinars, class-based workshops and presentations as well. Subject talks are also an excellent way to get the students thinking. And these are, as they're often delivered by experts and passionate academic staff, they can be very engaging as well. Peer learning is also very effective and influential as students seek and value tips and personal experiences from other students studying currently at their subject of choice. If your school knows of or is in contact with previous alumni, connecting them with your pupils can be very valuable as well. Most importantly, keep in touch with universities that can support you in organizing and delivering such opportunities and offer them in ways that are best fitted to your types of students. Encourage them to connect with institutions on social media and help them find the information that they need on their website. Follow UCAS to obtain the latest advice and updates regarding study in the UK, which you can then pass onto your pupils. - Okay, so there are a huge number of resources on this area and a number of examples as we've discussed. We've just picked out some of the most useful or relevant ones for you here. Also based on what our contacts with teacher and schools have told us and some of the kinds of areas your students might want to focus on. So there's a number of links in here which focus on either the sort of academic transition or particular areas like well-being and mental health. And some of those resources that each of our individual institutions offer at the moment. As we've said, it's a super dynamic environment for this so do connect with the social media accounts to make sure you get the most up to date information. It's also worth saying I think all of our universities are really keen to make sure that what we are developing at the moment, especially this summer, is actually responding to the needs of your students and your communities. So if you see something that we're not providing and that you'd like to see us provide, please do get in touch and indeed let UCAS know as well so that at a sector level we can't try to make sure we're meeting what your students need. So you'll be able to see these hyperlinks in the slide pack that you get, available on the conference website, you can click through to explore some of these better. Over to Laura. - So I think one of the hardest bits that Alberto, Eleanor, and I have found with delivering an online session is perhaps not being able to engage with you in person. So we're sorry we've been unable to do that throughout the session, but we're really keen to find out a little bit more around your thoughts and really if this has sparked any interest, or if there's any ideas that have come to you out of this. So we will be taking part in the Slido during the online conference, online live conference dates, which is the fourth and fifth of June. We will be letting you know as soon as we can with regards to when we'll be available to chat through and talk through some of these topics. But these are just a couple of questions that you might want to consider thinking about and putting in some thoughts and ideas. We'd love to hear what you already do to work with your students to support transition. But also what you think universities might be able to do better. And if there's other questions or other points that you want to bring up, please feel free to do so. Or take back some of these questions and use them within your own sort of school communities to further talk around this transition for international student subjects. So we'd really like to hear what your thoughts and ideas, and please do let us know and bring up some conversations to talk through with us during that online conference dates. So I think, just to finish off there, what we got up here are our contact us information. There are all of our details and links to our direct email addresses, so please do feel free to reach out to us if you have got further questions or queries. I know we're happy to discuss this at further point and if there's something you don't want to chat through on the online sessions, please do feel free to reach out and access us through those email addresses. - All that remains to say is thank you so much for listening. We hope you found these discussions interesting and engaging. We know this is a subject you're really concerned about and your students and families are really concerned about. And we're really keen to work with schools and colleges to make sure that what we're providing actually addresses those concerns, so please do keep those channels open and reach out and tell us what we're doing well and what we can do much better for you. And hopefully you'll be able to join in the discussion on Slido on the fourth and fifth of June. Thanks very much for listening. - On behalf of the University of Greenwich, also thank everyone much for joining us today. As Laura and Eleanor said, do feel free to get in touch with us, we would love to hear your ideas and to hear from you. Thank you.