Supporting African Canadian and First Nations Students: Strategies for Success [Association of Atlantic Universities, AAU]

"The Transition Year Programme (TYP) at Dalhousie University is designed to increase the successful participation of First Nations and African Canadian students in university studies. This paper provides some general information about the TYP, its genesis, current structure, and some of the challenges faced by students, then focuses on the evolution of one component of the Programme, a course entitled Strategies for University Learning. One particular assignment in this course was inspired by discussions with the students about how they believe their cultural background and experiences influence their learning and motivation. The interaction between cognition and culture is infinitely complex, and any attempt to understand it must take into account not only contemporary theories of learning, but also information from students themselves about their own educational struggles and successes. Since many of our students have encountered racism and prejudice and some seem to have very little moral support as they embark on the often intimidating journey into academia, the instructor decided to include in the course an assignment that would allow some of these issues to be explored in greater depth. Included in this paper are some of the responses to that assignment, especially what it revealed about the students’ prior learning experiences and their educational role models. Also discussed is the question of independent versus collaborative learning and whether students’ comments confirm what researchers have discovered about cognitive and motivational styles. The final section of this paper explains the ongoing support provided to students upon completion of the Transition Year Programme."