THE
IMPLEMENTATION OF A
1 Elizabeth Margarita Hernández L.,
Universidad de Guadalajara México (MEXICO)
2 Enriqueta Margarita Villa Olvera, University of Guadalajara (MEXICO)
elimahe@gmail.com,
Resumen: La
literatura sobre el uso de estudiantes como mentores ha demostrado que ésta relación
puede ser motivadora pero en ocasiones compleja. Este
documento describe la implementación de nuestro modelo
utilizando a los estudiantes como mentores. Este
modelo fue aplicado en uno de los módulos de
Abstract. Research on peer-mentoring has shown that the
peer-mentor relationship can
be rewarding but complex at times. This paper
discusses the implementation of our peer-mentoring model project which was applied in one
of the modules of the
Distance B.A. in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (LIMSEDILE). It also puts forth the results of
the mentor-mentee e-mail interaction during this trial period. Finally, it shares future implications for the
implementation of a mentorship in the modular curriculum.
1
Introduction
There has been much research and literature
on the positive aspects of participating in mentoring programs—school based is one
example of such programs. The Distance B.A. in
Teaching English as a Foreign Language (LIMSEDILE) doesn’t have a structured
mentoring program. We feel that because of its
very nature it is of great urgency that one be developed and implemented in order to
foster a better performance academically, deter attrition rate and achieve a more positive
attitude towards themselves and the program. This
mentoring system will be entirely e-mail based which according to Dappen [3]
only 1% of such programs are e-mail based.
The broad aim of the research is to establish
the feasibility of adopting peer mentoring in the LIMSEDILE program by first implementing
this model in one of the program’s modules within a specific time framework. The specific objectives were to demonstrate more
positive attitudes from the participants and, thus, higher levels of performance in their
academic work.
1.1 Defining peer-mentoring
There is a wide range of definitions of
Mentorship in the literature. This paper will
take peer-mentoring as a dynamic and two-way relationship that can be beneficial for both
the mentor and peer. [1] The
mentor in this particular case is not to mean teacher or holder of knowledge but a
student-colleague who has had more exposure to the distance program is better able to have
empathy, give support (emotional and academic), provide guidance and be accessible.
2 Establishing
Peer-Mentoring
As background information, it is worthwhile
to mention that the above program consists of self-contained modules and a
“practicum” component. The program is open to practicing teachers with a
three-year teaching experience as a minimum from anywhere in the country. The program is basically text-based with its
corresponding readings and task assignments which are sent to the student-teachers. At
this time, a tutor is assigned to them on behalf of the program coordinator; he or she
will be in charge of advising, giving feedback and supporting the learners’ concerns
within that module.
The means of interaction is mostly asynchronous. Learners and tutors are in touch by
e-mail. Assessments´ delays, information lingering on time and a decrease on the
students’ motivation and performance are situations to be believed a consequence of
having e-mailing as the sole form of interaction within this program. Therefore, an
interest on heightening the interactivity of the program by applying a mentor-student
pairing model to augment students’ academic performance and motivation arose.
This mentoring system is a pilot project
intended to be applied to one module in specific, involving the students in it and having
as an aim the assistance of the learners from the advanced tasks to the tutees from the
basic ones. Our aim is to help
counteract the problem of high attrition rate at LIMSEDILE . We
look at mentoring as a means of retention and an enhancement strategy for supporting
undergraduate distance education.
Peer mentoring is an interactive and dynamic process that involves participants in giving
guidance, support and providing feedback to peers to enable them to improve academic
performance. The increase in interaction can also help boost their motivation to continue
their educational goals. This type of learning
with the guidance of the tutor/facilitator and peers increases the learners’
development through the zone of proximal development to actual development [7].
As a basic framework for this project, we
take from the work of
3
Methodology
Our methodological framework is based on
Action Research. This study also relies on a
variety of sources of data such as e-mail contributions, questionnaires, discussions with
the module’s tutor and evaluation survey. This information is processed in a
qualitative form.
In order to carry out the implementation of
the mentoring-pairing system we first developed and designed the program and scheduled
dates to begin and end the trial period.
Then, we briefed the mentors as to their role
and familiarized them with both the overall goals of the mentoring program and the
techniques of mentoring. Thus, conforming to
the literature which puts forth that training is vital if we want the mentoring-program to
be successful because the mentoring role does not come naturally [4]. If the student is to be a mentor, they must be
well-prepared to perform this task.
Mentors in this project were prompted to promote the
development of desired skills such as demonstrating or modeling by example, questioning,
supporting and providing re-assurance and encouragement.
After, we paired the students in accordance
to the task number they were in the module. Students who were doing work on tasks 6, 5 or
4 were appointed to act as mentors. The students who were
working on task 3 or below were assigned to be the mentees. From this arrangement, six
pairings resulted (12 students). At this time,
the course tutor addressed both mentors and mentees in order to prompt them to meet each
other via e-mail. A special e-mail address was set-up in order for the participants to
send a copy to this address of every interaction between them.
During the interactivity period of ten weeks,
the main job of the course tutor was to observe and read their e-mail messages. Another, subordinate function was to discreetly and
sparingly intervene by prompting mentors to follow-up on their mentees which was done only
on two occasions when the tutor noticed there had been no response from the mentee.
4
Results and Discussion
The data collected was chiefly taken from the
interaction done through e-mail from 10 of the participants during the ten-week pilot
session. Two mentees never contacted their
assigned mentor. One had
‘disappeared’ from the program and the other was erroneously assigned to the
module. In the first phase, all interactivity data was coded and analyzed in accordance to
categories surged from the interaction between the participants, counting them and
associating them to each descriptor. ( table 1).
Table 1. Interaction: All Participants
Student
to Student Mentorship ·1 Socializing
·2 Encouraging
and expressing Empathy
·3 Requesting Information ·4 Responding to
Request ·5 Expressing
Concern |
Mentor-Tutor
Interaction ·1 Acknowledgement
of objectives ·2 Tutor
Intervention prompting interaction |
The contributions made
laid heavily on the socializing aspect of the interaction which was the most employed by
the participants with 21 contributions, followed by expressing empathy and encouraging
their mentees with 10; then the contributions in the formative academic sphere which
accounted for 8 instances in which the mentee expressed a request and the mentor in turn
supplied the information. The mentor-tutor
interaction, on the other hand, experienced low contributions primarily because this was
the intention of the tutor. During the
pilot period, the mentors contacted the tutor three times for the purpose of acknowledging
the project’s objectives. And the course-tutor intervened twice to prompt mentors to
contact their mentees.
In the second phase of the study, an evaluation
survey-questionnaire was sent to everyone
who participated to extract information on the value of having participated in the
mentorship. From the 10 questionnaires sent, only seven responded: 5 mentors and 2
mentees.
The student mentors
demonstrated enhanced self-esteem and self-confidence. These features emerged from
statements like “I felt important. I thought:’ If I
will be a mentor, surely my assignments are not too bad”. And, “I was delighted and honored to have been
chosen for this program”. Another
emergent feature was that of social skills with statements like “My mentee and I were
able to get to know each other on a more personal basis too”. And embedded in the
social aspect is motivation: “This gives you the opportunity to reach out and talk to
that person that can make you feel motivated and keep you going”.
However, mentees
opinion leaned more on the academic value that the mentorship could provide them as
statements like “I contacted my mentor once to get the right structure of the
assignment”. And, “I consider that having a mentor who has been doing the tasks
that I am going to do in the future is encouraging…..second because you feel more
confident clarifying information with a classmate.”
At this stage, we were
interested in discovering the fundamental perspective of the mentors’and
mentee’s emotional experience. Both
mentors and mentees claimed that their motivation increased because of their involvement
in this project. Two of the mentors said they believed “LIMSEDILE created this
project to stimulate commitment to the program of distance education.” In general, the participants portrayed a positive
attitude towards the idea of mentorship, however, we must not discard the negative remarks
when one reads, “I don’t write to my mentee as much as I should” ; and, “I felt worried because it was the busiest
time at my work and home making it difficult for me to write to my mentee.”
Upon closer
examination of the responses participants provided to the open ended question regarding
their feelings and reactions to their participation in this project, some of them reported
that they felt pressured for time because of other commitments,
yet, the same respondents were also willing to improve and help others. Thus, students perceive the benefit they might be
able to give and receive. They seem to have mixed feelings about mentorship. They might be
unsure to commit due to insufficient clarity of instructions and of the amount of time
that might be expected to commit to the mentorship program. It is tempting to offer
over-simplified explanations for these findings.
We should bear in mind that views change depending on the individual and the
circumstances.
5 Conclusion and future
implications
Evidence from this study confirms what previous
literature states about the benefits of integrating peer mentoring in institutional
educational programs. It enhances self-esteem
and social skills. The interactivity between the pairing promotes connectedness and
motivation. The vast body of research has
mostly looked at traditional face to face educational institutions to draw on these
conclusions, and only a small percent of research has been undertaken on the benefit of
mentoring for this modality.
Moreover, an outcome
indirectly derived from this experience has been the active involvement within the module
from the ten participants. Three have
completed this module and the others are working on their tasks. However, their participation does not necessarily
reflect higher academic performance. It does
not necessarily go hand in hand. This is in
itself another research question we could embark on.
We hope to make the mentoring process a key
instructional developmental strategy integrated fully in the modular curriculum. We are
under the assumption that all students
in the program, regardless of academic ability, have the opportunity of
mentoring. In our mentorship model, we view
the process of being a mentor as developmental, where all mentors (in the future) will
have had the experience of being mentees as part of their formation for becoming mentors.
We realize that for peer-mentoring to be
effective, the participants must be willing to partake in such activity. Thus, we propose to link the task of the mentor as
part of their social service to the community. In
this manner, mentoring will be on a one-year term voluntary basis and organized by the
institutional program. Some studies indicate that
mentoring relationships of short duration(less than 6 months) may do students more harm
than benefit [5], thus, our rationale for the mentor-pairing
to be for one year.
Once the mentorship is established in the
curriculum, additional longitudinal research studies should be implemented along with
peer-reviewed studies are recommended.
References
[1] Burrell, Brenda et.al., Student Mentors and
Protegés Learning Together. Teaching Exceptional Children, 2001,
Jan/Feb. p. 24-29.
[2] Curtis, T., & Hansen-Schwoebel, K.
Big Brothers Big Sisters school-based mentoring: Evaluation summary of five pilot
programs. 1999.
[3] Dappen, L. D. and J.C. Iserhagen. Developing a Student Mentoring Program: Building Connections for At-Risk
Students. Preventing School Failure (Spring 2005): p.21-25.
Academic Search Premier EBSCO. Retrieved
[4] Leung, M.L.. & Bush, T. Student
Mentoring in Higher Education. In Mentoring & Tutoring. 2003.
[5] Manza, G. Mentoring Works! Presentation at the National Mentoring Conference. 2001.
[5]
[6] Vygotsky, L.S. Mind in Society. 1978.