Peer Mentoring

Well, I'll kick things off then.
I taught my first FIG in Fall 2007. The topic was Children Marriage and the Family, and in the previous semester a student in Human Development and Family Studies had asked if she could write a thesis on family policy with me. I struck a deal in which she would attend many of my FIG sessions (having both the companion courses previously) and get to know the students. She was happy to do this, although as it turned out there was less interaction between her and the others than I'd have liked.

Fast forward to early this summer, when I am preparing to teach a FIG (with the same topic) for the second time. I am still in touch with most of the students from the FIG of 2007, and in quite close touch with several of them (ie correspond or see them once a month or so). While having coffee with one former Figger (lets call her EM) she asked me whether I had anyone that was going to play the role that said senior played in the first FIG. I hadn't really thought about it, but after a couple of minutes we both realised that she was interested in doing it. What I really wanted was something that only a few students (but including EM) could do -- watch me teach, watch the students, and tell me afterward what is and is not working. So I found some money to pay her to attend one class a week and discuss it with me.

We've been going three weeks now. EM is superb at telling me what I am doing right and wrong. It is mainly a credit to her (but I'd like to think it says something about my approachability and relationship with her) that she feels entirely comfortable chiding me for having failed to act on her (always good) good advice given the previous week. She keeps a careful eye on who is engaged and who isn't. tells me if the reading is too hard, gives advice on how to adjust in-class discussion prompts, and told me off (rightly) for cold-calling without warning them in advance that I was planning to do that. Because one of my central aims is to prompt them to disagree with one another quite a bit, she suggested that she talk to the class next week about the experience she had in the first few weeks of the class as a freshman of learning that it is ok to disagree, quite strongly, with other people in the class and not feel that there is anything personal going on.

So she's an asset to me. But the bigger, and for me unforeseen, role she is playing is as a participant in the classroom. At least once a week (and always, now, on the days EM is present) I have a discussion prompt for groups of 5, which then reconvene to discuss the issue as a whole class. Normally I would move between groups listening in. But the first time I did this, EM was assigned to a group. She took her role to be pushing the discussion along, getting the students to question their assumptions, and playing devil's advocate when there was too much agreement. If she and I are each doing that in one group, then half the students are getting direct interaction with someone playing an instructional role. If we circulate week by week, all the students are getting a fair amount of small group interaction with each of us. Over time she will get to know them. be available to talk about academic issues and what its like to be a student on this campus (she is, I don't think she'd mind me saying, an unusually diligent and responsible student, but is also extremely personable and unintimidating).

My hunch is that hiring someone from a previous iteration of a FIG to do the work she is doing is a low cost, but likely high impact, intervention. To be clear about the cost -- it is costing $550 for the whole semester to pay her 3 hours a week, which in the context of the cost of the FIG is very small. Of course, we'd need a randomized study to figure out whether it is really an effective practice, and I've been talking to Greg and a couple of funders about the possibility of doing that.

Any suggestions of what more I should be asking EM to do are welcome....