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DEVELOPING AND RESEARCHING A TRAINING SCHEME FOR PEER TUTORS AT THE LONDON METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY WRITING CENTRE Peter O’NeillKatherine HarringtonSavita BakhshiLynn ReynoldsLondon Metropolitan University Writing Centrewww.londonmet.ac.uk/writingcentreWrite Now CETLwww.writenow.ac.uk www.writenow.ac.uk

Outline of presentation • The need to share and discuss training schemes • The London Met training programme: a research-led training scheme appropriate for our context • Evaluating the scheme • Other approaches www.writenow.ac.uk

Launched 2006 Part of Write Now CETL Avoid duplication with existing (LDU) services Student peer tutoring in writing (Writing Mentor scheme) Aim: small but high quality scheme which will enable us to carry out research and disseminate findings across the sector 12 Writing Mentors Approximately 800 one-hour one-to-one tutorials a year London Metropolitan University Writing Centre Writing Mentors Scheme www.writenow.ac.uk

www.writenow.ac.uk

Challenges of the job • Diversity of London Met student body • International students • Home students with English as second or additional language • Non-traditional students • Widening participation and retention issues • Around 70 percent of Writing Centre students claim English as additional language • Around 20 percent of our students are postgraduates www.writenow.ac.uk

Need for training • “This was a very interesting session which helped me believe I can attempt to advise on any piece of writing, no matter how large or small.” London Met Writing Mentor Increase in peer tutoring schemes in Europe necessitates exchange of ideas and dialogue about appropriate training programme. www.writenow.ac.uk

North American Writing Centre Training US TRAINING MODELS • Summer classes • Spring semester classes • Credit-bearing courses Obstacles in the UK: • Crowded semester • Three year degree • Modular system • Timetabling issues • Students with other jobs www.writenow.ac.uk

Goals of training • Training which can be conducted in short and intense pre-semester sessions when all mentors can attend. • An efficient training – which will allow mentors to feel confident to carry out tutorials as quickly as possible. • Premised on the belief that the best training is “on the job” in an environment of sustained reflective practice – teaching and reflecting. • N.B. compulsory training – for the reputation of the scheme, we cannot let untrained students loose on other students! www.writenow.ac.uk

Training 2006 • FACILITATED BY MATTHEW MARTIN AND JONATHAN WORLEY, ST MARY’S UNIVERSITY COLLEGE BELFAST, CRITICAL THINKING AND ANALYTICAL WRITNG CETL (NI) www.writenow.ac.uk

Year 1: Belfast-led training Sense of occasion Belfast peer tutors in attendance Follow-up sessions throughout the semester which helped us to feel a sense of ownership of the scheme Need emerged for training which was closely tied in with the demands of our own context www.writenow.ac.uk

Research-driven training • For year two, we wanted to reflect on year one of the scheme and use this as the basis for our own training for year two of the scheme Goal of year 1 research • To investigate mentors’ experiences of the Scheme • To find out what really happens in a Writing Centre tutorial • To discover what underlies the most effective tutorials • To use the results as basis of our training. www.writenow.ac.uk

Background • In the first year of operation (2006-07), 400 students participated in the Student Writing Mentor Scheme. • A total of 675 hour-long tutorials were conducted by a team of 11 Student Mentors, including one postgraduate Mentor. • Students and mentors were asked to provide written feedback following each of the 675 tutorials. • Mentors were asked to reflect on their session using the following prompts: • How do you feel you were able to help the student? • What could have gone better? • The feedback was entered into a database ready for analysis. www.writenow.ac.uk

Methodology • A thematic analysis of all the feedback was conducted. • The data was analysed using the principles of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) (Smith, 1995, 1996; Smith & Osborn, 2003). • IPA is a qualitative research method that is concerned with the researcher trying to understand the experiences of participants and how the participants themselves make sense of their experiences. • IPA was used to code and group the text into themes: • Researchers read through the first semester’s feedback individually. • The three researchers compared and discussed their interpretations, which helped to validate the findings. www.writenow.ac.uk

What happens in a tutorial? • These themes and sub- themes were used to develop the mentors’ training scheme for the next year. The analysis found 4 main themes and sub- themes: www.writenow.ac.uk

Relationships between the four themes Self-reflections of the mentors Interpersonal relationship between student and mentor Student and mentor working together Student’s relationship to own writing Direct relationship Indirect relationship www.writenow.ac.uk

Day one morning www.writenow.ac.uk

Day one afternoon www.writenow.ac.uk

Day two morning www.writenow.ac.uk

Day two afternoon www.writenow.ac.uk

When tutorials go well… Katya is an international student and her main concern was grammatical errors that she tends to make quite often. As it was not possible to read through all her final draft of her dissertation in the one hour, we picked the discussion as Katya thought this was the most muddled. She explained her hypothesis to me and we tried to structure the discussion accordingly. I showed her a discussion structure plan that I tend to use for my work. This seemed to help her I think, as she was able to split up her work (discussion) and it made more sense to a native English speaker (i.e. myself) compared to before. We also picked up a particular structure for the main report also. A good session overall. Writing Mentor’s post-tutorial reflection www.writenow.ac.uk

“The student didn't have any written work and was not confident about his writing skills. I got him to freewrite about anything to help him boost his confidence. That worked! He was able to start thinking about how to tackle his piece of coursework. He stated that he had a lot of ideas in his head and I took the opportunity to allow him to freewrite to get these ideas on paper. The result: A skeleton for his essay. I asked him to prepare a draft introduction for his next session.” Writing Mentor’s post-tutorial reflection www.writenow.ac.uk

When tutorials go less well… • "There wasn't much I could do outside of stating that the question wasn't being answered and suggesting ways to structure an essay." • “I could only point out a couple of minor points to help.” • “We covered structuring, referencing, gathering material, clustering, editing, simplicity, etc. I felt empty afterwards and was trying not to have a fag to fill myself up.” Writing Mentors’ post-tutorial reflections www.writenow.ac.uk

Continuing training • Follow-up sessions on • How to help with reports • How to help with referencing • Practising commenting on essays Only after these sessions were mentors allowed to hold tutorials (usually in week four of autumn semester). Time-tabling difficulties scheduling these sessions. Therefore, this year we will have a three day initial training which will include working with reports and referencing. www.writenow.ac.uk

On-going reflective practice “She was concerned about the writing itself. She had done a good deal of research already and knew her facts. Her problem was that she got sidetracked by her own writing and said she repeated herself and was a bit all over the place. I suggested to write a rough draft first to get all the information out there and on paper. And then focus on getting it "fine-tuned". To write the first draft I suggested she freewrite, which we did in the session and she seemed very comfortable with it and realised how much she already knew. The session went quite well. It was just a bit hard to identify why she was here at first, as she would go off on a tangent and talk about some other part concerning her essay. Was my first tutorial and I hope I could help her. I think it went ok. Maybe I could have been a bit less directive, but she was so all over the place it was a bit hard. But I enjoyed it nonetheless” Writing Mentor’s post-tutorial reflection www.writenow.ac.uk

Spring Semester training • How to help with projects and dissertations (compulsory for all year three London Met students in Spring Semester) • More on referencing • Above all, group reflection related to the “core themes” • Wiki and “online student engagement tool” Again, training compulsory. One mentor couldn’t attend and we decided that we couldn’t let him teach with us. www.writenow.ac.uk

Evaluating success: mentors’ reflections • Analysis of mentors’ comments following tutorials in year two produced same themes as in year one • However, awareness of the importance of working collaboratively (e.g., working as enabler/facilitator, rather than teacher/assessor) was • more pronounced in mentors’ reflections and evaluations of the success of their tutorials • evident across all mentors, rather than concentrated in comments from a few www.writenow.ac.uk

Comments from mentors • I think it went very well because she had a lot of ideas and how to write coming to her practically without my help. It was just a matter of getting her to think about what she is good at. • She wanted me to do more for her, but I put my foot down and explained that we could work on things together. A tiring, but productive session. • I got Sally to ask herself questions when reading the paper and she started evaluating [her own work] more throughout the session. www.writenow.ac.uk

Evaluating success: students’ satisfaction 1 • Online questionnaire sent to all students who had tutorials in first 18 months of scheme; 99 responded • Students’ degree of overall satisfaction with the tutorials they have had (n=67) • 90% very satisfied or satisfied • 8% neither satisfied nor dissatisfied • 2% dissatisfied or very dissatisfied www.writenow.ac.uk

Evaluating success: students’ satisfaction 2 • What did students like most about their tutorials? (thematic analysis of open-ended comments; n=66) • 25.8% mentor’s approach/process of sessions • “laughed about things like bibliographies, and learnt about it together, as she was not sure how it worked either” • 25.8% received “help” or “feedback” • 18.2% non-judgemental atmosphere/tone of sessions • 10.6% learnt an aspect of academic writing • 7.6% attitude to self/writing as a result of tutorial • 6.0% one-to-one nature of tutorials • 3.0% N/A • 3.0% “don’t know”/”one-off”/other www.writenow.ac.uk

Students’ comments • The session was very helpful. I really enjoyed discussing my paper and finding ways to improve it. • It was fantastic when I found my personal abilities for writing during the tutorial. • The session has really helped me, my mentor … helped me understand how to structure an essay properly … and identify strengths of mine, as I’d only been able to identify weaknesses. The session has given me the confidence to believe that I can get a good mark on this module assignment. www.writenow.ac.uk

Theoretical Considerations • This training programme is very practical and hands-on and largely based around reflective practice based on actual teaching. • Should we be assigning more Writing Mentor scholarship and theory to our tutors? www.writenow.ac.uk

Student Mentor’s Experiences • Lynn Reynolds www.writenow.ac.uk

Belfast-led Training • Jonathan & Matthew's presence contributed to a feeling of connection with the WC scheme's US roots • Mentors from Belfast working with J&D in roleplay and other exercises helped mentors-to-be experience non-directive enabling for themselves • Created a thoughtful, playful space to practice with ideas • Practical tips of enduring usefulness

London Met Training • Equal numbers of returning and new mentors • Returning mentors contributing practical experience • Induction into the evolving philosophy of the London Met WC • Working with the London Met student population; learning differences and working with diverse disciplines

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