A Practical Guide to Developing PeerAssisted Study in HE Institutions Steve Scott-Marshall, Senior Counsellor, University of Teesside Kathryn Shaw, Student Achievement Officer, University of Teesside 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 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 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 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 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 Essential attributes of the mentoring concept at the University of Teesside 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 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) Questions/comments so far…? 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 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 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) 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) 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) Evaluation Feedback 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” 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!” 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? 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? Please contact us… Steve Scott-Marshall [email protected] Kathryn Shaw [email protected] 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_page 1.php Trinity College Dublin peer mentoring scheme Source materials    Anderson, E.M. & Lucrasse Shannon, A. (1995) “Toward a conceptualisation of Mentoring”, in T. Kerry and A.S. 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