About
The Being First Collaborative
The SAS Teaching & Learning team wanted to center first-generation student voices as we support faculty in designing accessible, equitable, and inclusive courses.
The Being First Collaborative includes first-generation undergraduate college students and members of the SAS teaching and learning team. Through this project we aimed to encourage deeper awareness and understanding of the diversity represented in college classrooms and to provide guidance on how best to design and deliver courses to support all learners. Over the 2023-24 academic year, we reflected on and discussed learning experiences and the challenges of the classroom to identify the most important teaching tips to support Rutgers instructors in creating first-generation friendly courses.
As a diverse group of first-generation learners, the group worked to capture as wide a range of experiences as possible. The collaborative also held focus groups with instructors to gauge what they wanted to know regarding how to best show up for the first-generation learners in their classes and how to best present this information to instructors.
The result is this website framed by four main themes, each with a handful of relatively easily implementable strategies.
Acknowledgement and Awareness Go a Long Way
Navigating College Can Be Confusing and Isolating
Uncertainty About Belonging Is Common
Course Structure and Instructor Responsiveness Matter
We’ve supplemented these contributions with literature on effective teaching and first-generation learner experiences.
The Being First Collaborative was made possible from a grant from the Educational Equity and Excellence Collaborative (E3C).
We want to also thank the SAS Communications team for their guidance in branding and the Rutgers Academic Media team for their video work.