Developing Effective Peer-Assisted Study Programs in Higher Education

1. A Practical Guide to Developing Peer-Assisted Study in HE Institutions Steve Scott-Marshall, Senior Counsellor, University of Teesside Kathryn Shaw, Student Achievement Officer, University of Teesside

2. Who we are Steve Scott-Marshall, Senior Counsellor: • Remit to build, establish and encourage peer-mentoring across the University • Train peer-mentors (flexible packages for different schemes) • Integrate peer-mentoring into Learning, Teaching and Assessment Strategy in University

3. Who we are Kathryn Shaw, Student Achievement Officer & Retention Support Officer in TBS: • Provide individual support for students • Orientation & Welcome Week Induction • Monitor and support attendance of 1st Years • Develop student peer support

5. Objectives of the Personal Development and Employability module (PDE) • To identify personal skills, abilities, interests and motivations and relate these to career opportunities • To develop skills shaped to employers’ needs to enhance employability • To apply communication theory within a business context, to include communication of numbers and IT • To allow students to develop their PDP through the module

7. Key aspects of the surgeries • Focus on assignments for the Personal Development and Employability (PDE) module • Open-door drop-in sessions • Mentor-led • One-to-one and group discussions • Students encouraged to share ideas • Questioning process

8. What do mentors do in the sessions? Mentors DO: • Encourage students to think about how to approach the task and what the question means • Guide students on where to access information • Relate to students from their own experience Mentors DO NOT: • Re-teach • Give students the ‘answers’ • Criticise staff • Answer queries beyond the remit of their role

9. Essential attributes of the mentoring concept at the University of Teesside • A process form • An active relationship • A helping process • A teaching-learning process • Reflective practice • A career and personal development process • A formalised process • A role constructed by or for a mentor A. Roberts (2000)

10. Questions/comments so far…?

11. Training the mentors Initial induction: • What is mentoring? • Introduction to learning theory • Communication, referral and problem solving skills • Introduction to UoT support services • Mentor Manual and information folder Ongoing training: • How to facilitate study sessions – not to re-teach!! • Specific consideration of assessment tasks

12. Example content (Task 1: SWOT Analysis) Mentors role to facilitate Task 1 with students, who were asked to: • Conduct a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats), in relation to your current strengths, skills and qualities • Present an action plan drawing from the SWOT analysis

13. Evaluation (Task 1: SWOT Analysis) Programmes: Number of students Business Management: 28 Public Relations: 5 Marketing: 3 International Business Studies: 2 Accounting and Finance: 3 Business Studies 3 Not known: 5 Total attendance: 49 students (24 full time, 25 part time)

14. Evaluation (Task 1: SWOT Analysis) Of students who attended a surgery for Task 1: • 94% found the session ‘useful’ (2% ‘not useful’, 4% ‘not sure’) • 91% said they would attend a surgery again (9% were unsure) • 93% said they would recommend the surgery to other students (7% were unsure)

15. Evaluation (Task 2: Emotional Intelligence) A basic analysis of Task 2 results indicated that students who attended a peer-assisted surgery scored on average 5% higher than a random sample of non-attending students = A positive indication of the benefits to student achievement (to be investigated further)

16. EvaluationFeedback from mentees • “This kind of service should be done more often, it helps new students to get on with their first tasks and gives you confidence with the rest of your assignments” • “It is very worthwhile to have a student’s perspective on how to tackle assignments”

17. Evaluation Feedback from mentors Did you gain anything from the surgery? • “relationships were developed with the students, also made me think about the task (SWOT analysis) for myself” • “I felt useful, approachable and it helped develop my communication skills” • “It made me happy to know that I was helping students and giving something back to the University!”

18. Discussion points 1: • What is the purpose of the peer mentoring programme? • How will it be embedded in the school/faculty/university student experience? • How can the students’ interests be placed at the heart of the mentoring experience?

19. Discussion points 2: • How will mentors be selected? What skills do they need? • What support and training is needed for mentors? • What’s the incentive for the mentors?

20. Please contact us… Steve Scott-Marshall S.Scott-Marshall@tees.ac.uk Kathryn Shaw K.E.Shaw@tees.ac.uk

21. Source materials • Fullerton, H. (1999) Facets of Mentoring in Higher Education 1, Staff and Educational Development Association • Colley, H. (2003) Mentoring for Social Inclusion • Miller, A. (2002) Mentoring students and young people: a handbook of effective practice • www.admin.ox.ac.uk/shw/peers.shtml Oxford University peer mentoring scheme • www.tcd.ie/Student_Counselling/peer_support_page1.php Trinity College Dublin peer mentoring scheme

22. Source materials • Anderson, E.M. & Lucrasse Shannon, A. (1995) “Toward a conceptualisation of Mentoring”, in T. Kerry and A.S. Shelton Mayes (eds) Issues in Mentoring, London: Routledge • Howard, A. and England-Kennedy E., Transgressing Boundaries Through Learning Communities, Journal of Cooperative Education, 36 (1) • Lundeberg, M. and Moch, S. (1995), Influence of Social Interaction on Cognition: Connected Learning in Science, Journal of Higher Education, 66 (3)