UK Centre for Materials Education
Working with you to enhance the student experience
Working with you to enhance the student experience
This project piloted a Peer Tutoring scheme for Design students at the University of Liverpool. A new semester long Year 2 mandatory Design module (Conceptual Design) was being developed, which provided ample scope for the implementation of Peer Tutoring, as this new module was more creative in nature. It was observed that students found Design difficult because of the creative aspect, as there is no single fixed solution to a problem. In Conceptual Design, the students were given a free reign to come up with varying solutions to a given problem, rather than being exposed to a prescriptive approach to problem solving. Ideally, Conceptual Design (Year 2) should have preceded Detailed Design (Year 1), but the module progression followed the way Design had traditionally been taught in the Department. It was also felt that Year 2 students had the benefit of more maturity, and exposure to the basics of their core subjects like Mechanics, Fluids or Thermodynamics.
Design is a staff intensive module, and this scheme enabled the use of other resources to support the two existing staff members involved in this module. The scheme was administered by a post-doctoral researcher, who was responsible for set up and administration, as well as organising the training of the Peer Tutors, obtaining, analysing and disseminating feedback. Training for the scheme was provided by a lecturer seconded from Imperial College, London who was based at UKCME, and had experience of organising a Peer Tutoring scheme at her earlier institute.
Peer Tutors were identified from Year 3 or Year 4, to ensure that they were at least a year above the Year 2 students. Recruitment was voluntary, with students answering the call-out for Peer Tutors placed by the administrator. During training, the Peer Tutors were given mock-up exercises similar to those done in class, so that they got an idea of what was expected from them. Introductory lectures were followed by three design problems, where students were given time to come up with solutions. Each exercise involved group meetings and was followed by a critique lecture. The whole process was reiterated until the final design problem, where the students had to do a CAD drawing of the problem with their preferred solution, write a short report on its industrial application, and also give an oral presentation. This ensured that communication skills were also covered as part of the module. All solutions were marked by members of staff, and the Peer Tutors were always given access to limited material.
The marks of the students taking this module did not show an appreciable increase overall despite the introduction of the scheme. It was also noted that it was difficult to assess marks quantitatively because of the small group size. There was, however, a significant rise in marks between the first and second exercises.
Though one of the learning outcomes of this module was the improvement and increase of conceptual skills and abilities in a design context, student feedback suggested that they found group sessions and discussions to be a more important learning outcome that the development of conceptual skills. One of the main benefits of this scheme was that the students were able to interact as a group, and both strong and weak students benefited from the brainstorming and discussion of ideas and possible solutions.
Unfortunately, this pilot scheme could nots be repeated in future years, due to a Departmental reorganisation of Design, and the lack of dedicated administrative support staff.
You can read the journal article about the project here.
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Adobe PDF Format, 232kb)
