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Tips for combining classroom activities and peer-to-peer dialogue to develop students’ understanding of the language of assessment and feedback
In response to the paucity of clinical placements available in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, alternate options for prelicensure students were necessary in order for them to complete the fieldwork required for graduation. In response, Curtin University replaced a faculty-led fully-simulated placement with a peer-assisted learning model. This incorporated final-year students acting as peer teachers to penultimate-year students, thus creating new learning and teaching placements for the final-year students. To our knowledge, this had never been done on such a scale before. Considering the im...
In this paper, we analyse the introduction of peer mentors into timetabled classes to understand how in-class mentoring supports students’ learning. The peer mentors in this study are high-achieving students who previously completed the same course and who were hired and trained to facilitate Peer Assisted Study Sessions (PASS). PASS gives students the opportunity to deepen their understanding through revision and active learning and are typically held outside of class time. In contrast, our trial embedded peer mentors into classes for a large (~250 students) first-year workshop-based course...
Access Foundation Programmes are a widening-participation initiative designed to encourage engagement in higher education among underrepresented groups, including those with socioeconomic and educational disadvantage. In particular, mature students enrolled in these programmes experience greater difficulties making the transition to tertiary education, especially when they opt to study disciplines traditionally considered difficult. Computer programming is perceived as a traditionally difficult subject with typically lower pass rates and progression rates than other subjects. This paper descri...
What happens when a peer-assisted learning scheme becomes “business as usual” rather than innovation? The proctoring scheme in undergraduate philosophy programmes at the University of Leeds has been running for over 25 years, making it one of the oldest (and possibly the single oldest) continuously running higher education peer-assisted learning schemes in the country. Over time, the centrality of the scheme in the teaching environment has changed, particularly in the shared understanding of philosophy learning and teaching and in the practical constraints of curriculum and timetable space...