Preparing for my Guest Speaker session!

Blogging on the topic of peer mentoring over the past few weeks has already provided me with the elements to be incorporated into the webinar I will present on the 14^th March.  Luckily I am not too apprehensive about presenting my findings online having consulted customers on how to host and facilitate webinars during my time at WebEx, but I still have an entire activity plan created to ensure that it is a success.  

The success of any webinar is in the way you market it and this will be done by posting my blurb as an announcement to all cohorts on my course, but also to other cohorts who frequently use another university site- The Edinburgh Napier Education Exchange. This was already in my activity plan and I will also be running a discussion after my first webinar to understand what my peers think of the topic of peer mentoring. It is all about gather more information to support the proposal I plan to present during my 2^nd webinar.  I will use the Universities Online collaboration tool Elluminate, which I have some experience of using. Thankfully most of the online collaboration tools available have almost identical features sets.  It is how you use these features, which contributes to the success of any webinar regardless of the topic.

Yes, I have attempted to write a blurb and what do I hope to achieve by doing this? Well, I hope that it will spark some interest to join the session and not only take away something new about peer mentoring, but also contribute through feedback during  and post webinar to  a possible implementation of a mentoring scheme for cohorts on the MSc BOE.  I am not sure what to expect qua feedback, but will create moments in my webinar for responses and the next few days will be spent thinking about the questions to pose to the cohorts after they have attended my 60 minutes of fame. My 60 minutes of fame as a guest speaker will need to be evaluated and I am also looking at possible question to add to my evaluation questionnaire as well as thinking about the number of questions, the question types and how I will use this feedback.

There are a number of tools out there and I have already been toying with the idea of using one of the following:

• SurveyMonkey
• Google Forms

These are two tools that I already know and I will opt for a tool I am comfortable using for this first webinar, but one of the opportunities I could take advantage of is to try other tools, but rather than me searching for a suitable tool I decided to tap in to the Social Networking world and pose a question to one of the communities I am a member of on Yammer to see what a group of 1, 280 members has to say about evaluation tools.  The feedback brought with it an interesting mix of tools 

• Zoomerang 
• PollDaddy 

Through doing some research it was stated that the two were regarded as basic survey tools and SurveyMonkey also featured here too. Two other tools mentioned were regarded as lower class integrated tools: 

• Moodle 
• FormSite 

Evaluating the success of a mentoring scheme will include some type of evaluation and this is certainly feature in my list of recommendations to the programme leaders. Which tool is going to be the interesting question and challenge I now have. 

There is so much literature out there!

This is not a standard post, but one of the biggest challenges to date is finding good literature on the topic of peer mentoring and I felt that blogging about the literature so far will not only help the other cohort on the module that I am following, but also people interested in reading more about peer mentoring.


I am looking at peer mentoring from the perspective of online and distance learning education, but some of the literature listed below looks at this from other perspectives. It would be interesting to see if followers and readers of my blog can add to this list by commenting on this post: 

• Ashwin, P. (2003). Peer Support: Relations between the context, process and outcomes for the students who are supported. International Science, 31, 159-173.
• Griffin, B. (1995). Student Mentoring to Facilitate University Entry. Mentoring & Tutoring for Partnership in Learning, 3, 2, 21-24.
• Heirdsfield, A.M., Walker, S., Walsh, K., & Wilss, L. (2008). Peer mentoring for first year teacher education students: the mentors‟ experience. Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, 16, 2,109-124.
• Jacobi, M. (1991). Mentoring and Undergraduate Academic Success: A Literature Review. Review of Educational Research, 61, 4, 505-532.
• Klasen, N., & Clutterbuck, D. (2004). Implementing Mentoring Schemes: A practical guide to successful programs. Elsevier: London.
• Tabbron, A., Macaulay, S., & Cook, S. (1997). Making mentoring work. Training for Quality, 5, 1, 6-9.
• Treston, H. (1999). Mentoring: Making a positive difference for individuals and institutions. Innovations in Education and Training International.
• Treston, H. (1999). Peer Mentoring: Making a Difference at James Cook University, Cairns – It' s moments like these you need mentors. Innovations in Education and Training International, 36, 3, 236 – 243.

I chosen to share this selection on literature, as these sources have provided me with the most information to date. One of the biggest challenges is finding new literature on this topic. A lot of the literature is US centric, but still relevant. 

Benefits and problems of implementing peer mentoring revisited

My current research has brought me back to the topic of the benefits of peer mentoring, but also the problems, actually challenges establishments face when implementing a peer mentoring scheme.  Before I jump into this topic I also consider different approaches to mentoring and there are clearly a number of different approaches that can be taken:

1. Competence Based approach 
2. A Typology approach
3. Integrated approach

The first approach seemed pretty clear, and after further reading the second approach looks more at variety in the mentor role, but I was more interested in the last approach as this approach is a combination of four development approaches

1.    Coaching

2.    Counseling

3.    Networking/facilitation

4.    Guardianship

It is this final approach that appeals the most to me , an approach that I would associate with mentoring.  One of the other reasons that this final approach speaks to me is that it supports both the intellectual and emotional needs of a mentee a view that is also shared by (Klasen and Clutterback, 2004)

So, it is back to the benefits of mentoring schemes.   It is all about support.  According to Baginsky (2004) mentoring schemes allow the student mentor to take on the responsibility for and contributing to a supportive environment for the mentees. Support with online and a distance learning programme is detrimental for the success of a programme. We spent an entire module during my studies looking at Supporting Blended and Online learning! Mentoring schemes clearly provide social and development support for mentees (Jacobi, 1991). The word support returns here again!  I had already consider the idea that mentoring schemes seem to influence the attrition rates, especially on distance and online courses, but one final advantage links back to the approach I spoke about in an early post, the integrated approach.  There are clear mentee advantages that that this approach brings through the four development areas:

1. Identifying development needs, action planning and problem solving
2. Goal setting, motivation and satisfaction, networking opportunities
3. Personal change and time effectiveness

This is great for the mentee, but what about the mentor, who has invested their time to support the mentee in these development areas?  I believe it contributes to the entire learning experience and self-satisfaction

It was time to stop looking at the advantages and consider some of the problems (challenges) of implementing a mentoring scheme.  Before I am able to propose scheme it was time to understand the pitfalls.  When developing a training programme you set yourself some objectives.  If plan a meeting with a customer a set my own objectives for that meeting and clearly one of the challenges that can hinder the implementation of a peer mentoring scheme is the expectations and objectives are not clear and this for both the mentor and mentee.  

My first meeting with the BOE Programme leaders will be an objective setting meeting. What does the team hope to gain from this mentoring scheme and through the guest speaker sessions, what does the cohort perspective mentors see as the objectives of this programme. Aha, I already have a discussion question that I can pose to my cohort audience. I am sure that once we have a clear list of objectives for both mentor and mentee it will make it easier for both parties to accept this scheme.  I dread to think what would happen if we do not have this in place? Mentors forcing themselves on mentees, mentees feeling overpowered by the mentor presence, a situation that would bring with it unnecessary stress and possible failure.   I like lists of advantages and disadvantages here are a few of the disadvantages:

1. Lack of consistency in meetings
2. Absenteeism of the mentee
3. Frustration of mentor
4.  Lack of time
5. Pressure to take on the mentor role
6. Not taking feedback seriously
7. Not open to coaching
8. No perceived reward
9. Personality mismatches
10. Adequate support elsewhere, so no need for a mentoring scheme.

I will shortly be presenting my first guest speaker session where I will share much of the findings shared in these posts with my cohort audience.

For those interested in reading more on this topic here is a list of resources:

• Baginsky, M. (2004). Peer Support: Expectations and Realities. Pastoral Care.3-8.
• Klasen, N., & Clutterbuck, D. (2004). Implementing Mentoring Schemes: A practical guide to successful programs. Elsevier: London.
• Jacobi, M. (1991). Mentoring and Undergraduate Academic Success: A Literature Review. Review of Educational Research, 61, 4, 505-532.

Peer Mentoring and Learning Models

During a VOH session with a fellow cohort and one of our programme leaders we discussed the topic of peer mentoring, e mentoring and supplemental instruction and how they relate to certain learning models.  Julia one of programme leaders mentioned the Community of Inquiry Framework. I remembered that this framework provides a  set of guide lines to create effective learning communities in both online and blended learning environments (Garrison & Anderson, 2003; Garrison & Vaughan, 2008).  Looking at each of the elements of this framework: 

• Social presence 
• Cognitive presence 
• Teaching presence 

I started to think about where I could place peer mentoring within this whole educational experience?  my gut feeling went with Social presence. Why?  Well, if I consider that Garrison ( 2009) regard Social presence as   “the ability of participants to identify with the community (e.g., course of study), communicate purposefully in a trusting environment, and develop inter-personal relationships by way of projecting their individual personalities” (p. 352), then peer mentoring could also support this. 

I had already come to the conclusion in previous posts that mentoring provides a channel for  open communication and eventually group cohesion. It also provides mentees  with the opportunity to take part in open and purposeful communication and in turn this would be supported by the extra recognition, encouragement and interaction provided not only by the lecturer, but moreover the mentor. It seems that was also a view taken by Garrison and Anderson in 2003.  So, could this help resolve the problem of distance learning students feeling isolated and help universities retain student numbers. Yes! 

The term Cybergogy was dropped into the conversation during the VOH and if you are not sure what this is take a look at the following link: Cybergogy.   Firstly I have to thank one of our Programme leaders for introducing me to this model, a model that has come into light with the development in educational technology and its influence of teaching and learning.  When I looked at the Cybergogy model more closely and the elements that contribute to this model it seem quite easy for me to place peer mentoring within the framework. Where? Right in the middle. Peer mentoring is going to contribute to an engaged learning environment, through the interventions of the mentor whether this is ensuring that the mentee feels part of a community of engaged learners or whether the mentor can contribute this the engagement, but sharing their prior knowledge and experience with the mentee and final communication, which if you look at the model features in the three elements that contribute to " Engaged learning" . 

So why have a shared these two models in this post. It clear shows that peer mentoring fits into many of the learning models and contribute to them, whether this is to create a learning community or engaged learner.

Here are the resources which support this post: 

• Garrison, D. R. (2009). Communities of inquiry in online learning: Social, teaching and cognitive presence. In C. Howard et al. (Eds.), Encyclopedia of distance and online learning (2nd ed., pp. 352-355).  Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
• Garrison, D.R., & Anderson, T. (2003). E-Learning in the 21st century: A framework for research and practice. London: Routledge/Falmer.
• Cybergogy

It's all about Student retention

This post will concentrate on the benefits that peer mentoring bring to education establishment, having looking at the topic “what is a peer mentor?”  in a previous post  it was to understand the benefits that a peer mentoring scheme brings to any form of education establishment and specifically those offering online and distance learning programmes.

One of the first benefits I came across appeared in an  article written by Janet Truluck, an Academic Professional and Coordinator of an Online Master’s programme of Adult Education from the University of Georgia, USA. It is all about  STUDENT RETENTION.   She focused on the establishment of a Mentoring plan to improve retention in online graduate programmes. This is a theme that I had not even considered. Peer mentoring may resolve student retention.  What I was interested to hear was that retention issues were much greater in this format than in traditional campus based course.   I believe there are two challenges that programme leaders face:

• Maintaining contact with students
• Helping students overcome the feeling of isolation

This must be a challenge for most programme leaders, counteracted with the inclusion of VOH (Virtual Office Hours) and providing students pastoral support through a PDT (Personal Development Tutor). The question that needs to be asked is, is this enough to keep student churn down?   I remember when I first started the MSc degree  I am correctly reading the cohort was huge, although this number dwindled and there was really only a core group of students over with the first month of the trimester. Could we have saved a small percent of the drop outs by having a peer mentoring scheme?  So what are some of the reasons for student churn on online and distance learning programmes?

Online students face more distractions from work and family responsibilities which may account for a higher attrition rate than is seen in regular face to face classrooms. Some believe that distance education courses require significantly more time and effort on the part of faculty (Thompson, 2002)  Thinking about this even more,  a programme leader or programme teams  biggest challenges  are ensuring  that their course is  cognitively stimulating and that there is solid supportive environment in the virtual classroom (Wiesenberg 1999).  So distance education does bring with it a whole new set of issues to both instructors and learners with retention being at the forefront of concerns. A buddy scheme, mentoring programme is in many cases not on their list of priorities. It is challenges such as maintaining programme accreditation, creating stimulating modules to increase the appeal of their programme and ensuring that they are update to date on current trends that maybe push the topic of peer mentoring to one side.

For those of you interested in reading more Google the following.

Thompson, M. (2002, October). Faculty satisfaction. Sloan-C View: Perspectives in Quality Online Education, 1, 6-7.

Decided to look at peer mentoring from another angle.

This morning I decided to look at peer mentoring from another angle before revisiting the next phase of my research, the topic of  how peer mentoring benefits education establishments and when I talk about education establishment I am not restricting this to higher education, but Corporate Universities and Learning and Development departments. 


In an earlier post I elude to the idea that peer mentoring adds a social aspect to a course and with this in mind a posed a question to a community of Social Learning experts in the Social Learning Community I am a member of on Yammer. Much to my joy members have reacted to my post with likes, but also some comments. One of my followers suggested that I take some time to look at research from Professor Vivien Hodgson. Professor Hodgson  has written a lot about informal learning and networked learning over the years based on her experiences of running lots of peer-based virtual learning environments that support Lancaster's various masters programmes in management learning, leadership and HR. Google was open and I typed in her name + peer mentoring  and much to my joy there was a lot of great literature for me to wade through, which I will not share here, but the following links referencing her work a worth a read.

• Understanding the Implications of Networked Learning for Higher Education
• Personalised Peer-Supported Learn

My posts to date  have concentrated on peer mentoring from a social aspects and I will certainly consider the theme of peer mentoring for learning after reading the above mentioned literature. 


It was interesting to read that one of the members is looking at introducing a peer mentoring scheme within his organisation and supporting this with SoMe (Social Media). I am always interested in ways in which Social Media can be used as a learning tool.  I was recently invited to join a chat on Google+, which is being used by too fellow cohorts on the same degree programme. One of the cohorts is using this tool to mentor the other cohort , which I thought just fantastic. I asked both of them if they are willing to be interviewed allowing me  to record their experiences as a mentor and mentee communicating through this medium.

The world of online peer mentoring

Having taken some time to look at the topic of peer mentoring in general I went a step further at started to look at the role of an online peer mentor. I had a few questions that I started to ask myself, questions that stemmed from the research I have been doing over the past few days. 

1. What is an online peer mentor?
2. How is an online peer mentor different from an online supplemental instructor?
3. What training do online peer mentors have?
4. 
   

   How are online peer mentors chosen?
5. What qualities make for a good online peer mentor?

Yes, this might look like an exhaustive list of questions,  but they are  questions that I need to find answers to in my quest to understand the world of  online peer mentoring. Here is my view on the questions posed above:

What is an online peer mentor?  I found an interesting video that encapsulates what an online peer mentor is: 

Peer mentoring  

Clearly an online mentor, is in most cases a successful student that has been placed on a course that they have  already completed. Their role is to serve as a guide for others, which is eluded to in the YouTube video.  Some of their many skills as a peer mentor seem to be that of facilitating discussion and locating resources for others, although I am sure that this is not their soul responsibilities. Their essential function for me to act as a role model for other students.

I seem to have an aversion to the term supplemental instructor as I don't  see the role of  peer mentors  as being an  extension of the instructor, but they  have a distinctive role mentoring in several activities, again having the opportunity to share their experiences with other cohorts, fostering discussion and support students to become successful, which I refer to early in this post. 


At this stage of my research some very clear themes were starting to appear, which will support my proposal to introduce a buddy scheme on the MSc BOE (Blended and Online Education) course. As I develop Sales training many of these benefits I am eluding to here would certainly be on my list of USP's ( Unique Selling Points) to outline the value that such a  scheme would bring to course I am currently studying on.  

I need to understand the logistics of on boarding mentors as this is going to be a vital element of my proposal. So what kind of training would they need? I quite completely came to the conclusion that an online peer mentor will have an NLP master or professional coach qualification in the bag!  The concept of the mentoring taking place online asks the mentors to have some experience in online communication and they may need to have some experience in learning software, whether this be WebCT or Moodle or any other tool used out there. I am sure some kind of pedagogical training would also be valuable. Not every student is suited to this role and some kind of selection process needs to take place. Maybe establishments only look at successful students, which seems to be the common theme in the literature I have read to date. I would opt for an all-round student, who is sociable, tech-savvy  and has an clear interest in helping others.  Someone who does  not feel comfortable online would not be on my selection list of peer mentors.  This would be my wish list:

• A good communicator and good verbal skills 
• Social
• Feels comfortable taking on a leadership role

This post has dealt with the topic of what is a peer mentor. My upcoming webinar will also cover the topic of how education establishment benefit from running peer mentoring schemes.   

Learning more about peer mentoring

The benefits of peer mentoring

One of the core elements of my upcoming presentation will introduce the topic of peer mentoring and consider the benefits that peer mentoring brings to a mentee.  I know that any kind of peer mentoring scheme or buddy scheme benefits those who take part in them. This brings me back to my time as a student at the University of Wales, Bangor, where I had the opportunity to take part in the launch of a University wide buddy scheme.  I felt as though I was giving something back to the University by taking on a group of new student guiding and support them during their first few weeks and inevitable their first year at University. It was music to my ears to hear how valuable it was for them to have a peer to chat to and ask questions and in some cases having the mentor take on mentee as a tutee. 

With this in mind, it was clear that before looking at how mentoring could effectively be used for online programmes I needed to take one step back and look again at peer mentoring in general.    I call it peer mentoring, though it seems that it known under many names:

·         Peer tutoring

·         Peer mentoring

·         Proctoring

·         Supplemental instruction

I must admit that I find the last example in this list less appealing.  According to  Beasley, C. (1997) peer mentoring is regarded as  cost-effective means of providing academic support to students through the use of a valuable teaching and learning resource, namely other students and continuing on this them benefits would include:

·         improved understanding and performance in the subject area involved

·         improved confidence and study skills, as well as on-going friendships

I have to agree on both of these benefits, as I witnessed this myself as a mentor and mentee.  Peer mentoring has both a learning and social aspect to it.  At this stage I think it is important to look at the benefits from two main parties involved the “Mentor” and the “Mentee”. The research I have undertaken over the last few days has helped me to provide this following summary

Mentor Benefits

·         Mentoring provides the mentor the opportunity to develop both their leadership and professional skills through assisting their mentee in getting acclimatised to a new academic environment.

·         A peer mentor's own working knowledge of university policies and procedures provides the mentee with additional support.

·         Peer mentoring provides the mentor with an opportunity to build professional relationships within a given academic department.

Mentee Benefits

·         able to focus more on studies due to the support provided by their peer mentor

·         In many cases this supportive environment successful through peer mentor's empathy for the mentee's position.

·         The student is able to achieve a higher level of productivity because of her increased academic focus.

·         This builds confidence and increases the likelihood that the student will succeed in her new academic environment.

Some of my research also involved me looking for interviews that highlight the benefits of peer mentoring and the selection I am sharing here highlight much of what I had discussed thus far.

Peer Mentorship 

Peer Mentoring: GivingTime

What I also find interesting about the short interview is that they elude to the fact that peer mentoring schemes are also used to help with the transition that many students have to make when the move on to life a University.

My next post will look more at Peer mentoring for online programmes

Resources:

Beasley, C. (1997). Students as teachers: The benefits of peer tutoring. In Pospisil, R. and Willcoxson, L. (Eds), Learning Through Teaching, p21-30. Proceedings of the 6th Annual Teaching Learning Forum, Murdoch University, February 1997. Perth: Murdoch University. http://lsn.curtin.edu.au/tlf/tlf1997/beasley.html

Peer Mentoring Benefits | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/info_8367270_peer-mentoring-benefits.html#ixzz1mqkC6e7V

Learning Contract submitted time to think about Applied Practice teaching activities.

My learning contract has been submitted and I have found the focus for my ABPOT.   To provide you all with an idea behind my project I wanted to share the rational I wrote an element of my submitted learning contract. My ABPOT project will look at the introduction of a Buddy scheme a scheme, which will not only facilitate collaborative learning between cohorts, but provided newer cohorts with additional pastoral support, support which is usually provided by a personal development tutor.  
According to Palloff, 2003 students are becoming more involved in supporting their learning in an online community of learners.  In turn this encourages students to form social bonds that as they deepen will motivate the learner to establish an identity within the group through active participations and contributions to the collective knowledge of the group.


I decided that even before I dive into creating a proposal, which will outline a buddy scheme to both BOE faculty and its cohorts  it was clear that I needed to take a step back , to reflect on the following questions: 

• What is peer support/mentoring ?
• How can this be used effectively online?  
• What are the benefits of online peer support/mentoring?

With this in mind I have take the time to search for any information on the  topic of peer mentoring and  I have stumbled across an array us useful indicative literature The task in hand is to engross myself in the following literature and introduce this topic to those on the MSc BOE: 

•   Developing Online Peer-to-peer Mentoring Programs for Distance  Degree Programs
• Online Peer review- An Alternative  to face to face
•  Peer Support/Peer, Provided Services, Underlying Processes, Benefits, and Critical Ingredient

As the days past this list of literature will grow and I will and I am going to take the time to share the highlights of my research, before I share this with you shortly in a live environment.


My next post will deal with the following themes: 

• Peer Mentoring and consider the questions a posed above 
• Introducing the theme of Online Peer Mentoring

Resources 
Palloff, R.M. and Pratt, K. (2003), The Virtual Student: A Profile and Guide to Working with Online Learners, Jossey-Bass, San Franscico, CA

Getting Started!

Where to share the experiences of the next module Applied Practice in Blended and Online Teaching  of my MSc BOE degree was easy. Blogger!  Why Blogger? I am an avid user of anything Google and after start up problems with wordpress it was quite an easy decision to sign up for blogger and begin my reflective journey here.  My hope is that using the goggle platform will give me the opportunity to share my experiences with a larger readership. Whilst setting up the blog I was given the option to link this to Google+  and I am all about getting my message out to my network around me. As the weeks progress I will also delve deeper into the feature set that Blogger offers.