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Academic Support - Peer Assisted Learning
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What happens in a Peer Assisted Learning session?

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This section aims to give some insight into what happens during a PAL session.

On most courses PAL sessions usually last for an hour and take place each week. PAL sessions appear on the first year students' timetables so that they are perceived as a normal part of the students' learning activities.

Leaders are asked to take a record of attendance for each session and to give these to the Course PAL Contact at the end of each month. This helps the Course Contact to monitor how PAL is going and will usually form part of the Contact's report to their Course Committee.

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The schedule for the PAL session

Once PAL Leaders have welcomed students to the PAL session, we encourage our Leaders to agree a schedule for the session with the group. This provides:

  • A structure to the session;
  • Ensures that their students have a significant say in what is to be covered;
  • Makes certain that students are encouraged from the start to raise any issues of concern or interest to them;
  • Brings the students together as a group.

The agenda for a PAL session may be chosen in a number of ways depending on the time of the year and nature of topics chosen for discussion:

  • Discussions during the early stages of the academic year are likely to focus on issues associated with settling in to the University - campus orientation, travel, accommodation, pubs and clubs, and other issues to do with being away from home for the first time. Leaders act as a major source of information and advice for these new students, easing them into university life, and helping the seminar group to integrate socially.
  • After about 3 weeks PAL sessions will tend to focus more on identifying and reviewing the key points from lectures, sharing current news items of relevance to the course, focussing on academic issues such as using the Library for research, referencing or understanding what constitutes plagiarism, and discussing study skills such as note taking, time management and preparing effectively for lectures. Resources in the “PAL Student Leader Manual” support and guide these activities and we work closely with the University's Subject Librarian team to ensure packs containing photocopied pages taken from subject relevant examples of books, journal articles and web sites are available for the referencing activity. There will be some pair work, especially when comparing lecture notes and identifying the key points from each lecture. PAL leaders perform a supportive role but will start to redirect questions back to the group, encouraging a reflective approach.
  • At certain times discussions will focus on analysing the requirements of specific assignments with a much greater emphasis on small group work. These give students an opportunity verbalise, to share ideas and acquire new perspectives, and are followed by plenary feedback to the rest of the seminar group. PAL leaders manage these activities and, in addition to bringing their own perspectives and experience to the discussions, are encouraged to probe, question and seek further clarification from each small group during feedback.
  • Throughout the year the onus is on the first year student participants to suggest issues for discussion in PAL, though they often need encouragement to do this during the first few weeks.
  • We provide Leaders with a detailed first session plan which is not only important in setting expectations about PAL for the rest of the year, but also contains suggested icebreakers to help the students get to know each other and the group to cohere.
  • In some cases academic staff may suggest activities or topic areas to work through in PAL sessions and will help their Leaders to plan these sessions. These activities are often those included in the course handbook or workbook and provide a valuable resource for both Leader and students. This helps tie PAL in with course demands and provide a clear course-related focus to sessions.
  • Towards the end of the year PAL sessions are likely to focus on exams. Discussion may centre on sharing revision planning and techniques, identifying likely exam questions, or preparing outline answers to questions from past papers.

 

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Encouraging participation

We place considerable emphasis on ensuring that PAL Leaders do not perceive themselves to be teachers. Their main role is to support active learning by encouraging students to participate in discussion so that they, in effect, arrive at answers to their own questions. During their training we ask Leaders to suggest ways in which they might encourage students to engage actively in the collaborative group discussions that lie at the heart of PAL. Ideas include (in no particular order):

  • Using students' names
  • Using small group/pair work;
  • Encouraging students to verbalise;
  • Using positive reinforcement.
  • Redirecting questions back to the group;
  • Asking open-ended questions that draw on students experience, their reading or what they recall;
  • Waiting long enough for students to think before responding rather than jumping in with the answer or another question;
  • Encouraging students to search in their notes or textbooks for information or clarification;
  • Using Socratic questioning so that students break down complex issues into smaller parts that can be more easily addressed;
  • Getting students to use the whiteboard to record the outcomes of small group discussions or stages in reasoning;

It is the job of the PAL Leader to manage the process of discussion and interaction between the group members. It may be said that some of the best PAL sessions are in fact those where the Leader takes a back seat with most of the ideas emerging from the group.

In a model PAL session, there will be lively discussion between first years, leading to a deeper understanding of course subject matter. It will be the intention of the PAL Leader that the first years take ownership of the session, communicating with each other as much as, or more than, with the Leader. As such, the role of the Leader will involve facilitating first years´ discussion through encouragement, asking open-ended questions (as above), redirecting questions back to the group, and regularly summarising discussions – or asking members of the group to do this.

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Ending the PAL session

The last 15 to 20 minutes of the PAL session should be reserved for feedback on the outcomes from each of the small group discussions. The PAL Leader will ensure that key points or summaries from discussions are recorded in some way either onto the whiteboard or overhead transparency. The Leader may either ask a first year student to be `scribe´ while the Leader manages the feedback or, ask each group to present their findings on an OHT slide.

At the end of the session, the Leader will briefly review the agenda, jot down details of recommended reading on the whiteboard, and ask the students to say whether there is anything they would like to cover in the following week's session. Students are thanked for their attendance and may be asked how they felt the session went.

Finally, after the session has ended PAL Leaders are expected to reflect upon the session and assess how they felt they conducted it. We ask Leaders to fill in a session assessment form to encourage this reflection:

PAL Session Review

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Any comments or questions contact pal@bournemouth.ac.uk

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