Becoming critical: Lecturers’ perspectives of learning engagement in first year at USC

This paper emerges from a funded study that asks two parallel R … D questions, and then combines findings to discover degrees of congruence between perspectives and experience: · What are the perspectives of first year students when engaging in learning through lectures and tutorials? · What are the perspectives of lecturers as they engage first year students in learning through lectures and tutorials at USC? The findings presented in this paper focus on the second question with a particular emphasis on learning environments that lecturers prefer to engage first year students in learning at USC? Further the paper reveals: 1. the conditions that foster learning engagement with first year students most successfully at USC? 2. The difficulties lecturers have encountered while engaging first year students in learning at USC and 3. how have they managed these difficulties. In conclusion the paper takes up the critical agenda and articulates how academics can engage in curriculum development and pedagogical practices that enhance learning engagement for first year students