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Faculty of Arts and Humanities

Student Ambassadors for Learning and Teaching

Final Report 2011-12

Written by

Bryony Dent, Laura Clark, Alyssa Campion, Hannah Milton, Katy Robinson,

Thomas Quinn and George Horgan

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Contents

Project Topic, Aims and Outline 3

Research 4

What We Did - September - December 2011 4

What We Did - January - April 2012 6

Evaluation and Feedback 10

Impact of Project 13

Recommendations for Future work 14

Personal SALT Experiences and Reflections 16

Appendices 21

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Project Topic, Aims and Outline

How We Arrived At Our Project

During the initial stages of being a Student Ambassador for Learning and Teaching (SALT)

deciding what project we wanted to focus our energies on was the main priority!

To do this, we recognised that we needed a project which addressed all subjects across the

faculty of Arts and Humanities in order for every member of the team to feel equally involved

and able to contribute to the process. Equally, we wanted to ensure our work responded to Arts

and Humanities priorities drawn up by the Faculty Learning and Teaching Committee.

We all came up with preliminary ideas which we pitched to the rest of the team – this was a

fantastic opportunity to get to know each other better and identify the individual learning and

teaching concerns we wanted to address by the end of the process. It was difficult to narrow it

down to one project, but we decided to focus on running a peer mentoring scheme in which

students would academically tutor others on the same course that required the most help.

Project Aims and Outline

After discussions with Amy Jeffries we narrowed down our project even more to focus on Dual

Honours students, with second years acting as mentors and first years as mentees. This enabled

us to focus on a smaller cross section of students. We felt as our project was such a large

undertaking, it would run as a pilot scheme in semester two with planning and research taking

place in semester one.

This lead to the formulation of our mission statement:

‘Our aim is to run a collaborative academic peer mentoring scheme specifically tailored for first

year Dual Honours students within the faculty of Arts and Humanities.’

The scheme would provide the opportunity for students to:

● voice their academic concerns

● reinforce their sense of community within both departments

● develop a set of skills applicable to both their subjects

In addition, the mentors themselves should gain new skills, friends and valuable experiences to

help them in the future. As part of the project we also wanted to create a ‘resource bank’ for

dual-honours related academic skills which will not only help the mentors address their

mentees’ needs but will also be made more widely available for other students.

We also expressed the desire, if the project was a success, to expand the scheme in the years to

come.

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Research After deciding on the SALT project it was necessary to research the Dual Honours courses in the

faculty of Arts and Humanities so that we could provide the best service possible for our

Mentors and Mentees. We started by advertising focus group sessions by e-mailing department

secretaries as well as targeting departmental societies. We intended to meet with Dual Honours

students and question them on the issues they were faced with as a result of their course as well

as how they felt the mentoring scheme should be run; what skills should we address? How many

mentees should there be per mentor? How often should the meetings take place etc.

While only six Dual Honours students attended the sessions, the responses we received to our

questions were detailed and instructive. Moreover, most of the information we gathered was

consistent with every student. The focus group sessions were recorded as well as minutes being

taken. After all of the sessions had taken place a report was written up summarising our findings.

A copy can be found in Appendix 1.1.

After the report was written up, it was clear that we were on the right track with a Dual Honours

mentoring scheme. We knew what issues Dual Honours students needed help and advice on as

well as how to proceed with the running of the scheme. In addition to the focus groups we

contacted the faculty of Arts and Humanities and retrieved the data from the National Student

Survey report of 2010/2011. We each looked at comments relating to Dual Honours issues in our

own departments and analysed the statistical data drawn from Dual Honours responses across

the Faculty. Two separate reports were drawn up to clarify our findings relating both to

academic mentoring and Dual Honours as a whole, see appendices 1.2 and 1.3.

Finally we contacted the Directors of Learning and Teaching from each of our departments and

asked for their opinions on the proposed scheme. They were able to advise us on academic

support from a departmental perspective and as personal tutors, allowing us to spot potential

problems and link our project with existing academic support in the faculty. Overall, the

research process felt long and arduous at times, but it helped us save time in the long run,

ensuring we created a scheme that was beneficial for all involved.

What We Did - September - December 2011 Between deciding on our project and the Christmas break our work was mostly focused on

planning the details of how we saw our mentoring scheme running. In order to establish where

each of our strengths would lie when we came to implement the scheme we created a

relationship map. This meant we had a central document with details of each of our contacts to

use as a reference throughout our project. See Appendix 2.1.

We then began to think more specifically about what we wanted to achieve with our mentoring

project and identified our aims both for the mentors and the mentees as follows.

For mentees:

· Improve academic support for A&H Dual Honours students

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· Create a sense of academic community

· Provide skills to students which can help them academically and address employability

· Inform and support students in the transition between levels

For the mentors:

· Help them develop personal skills including communication, organisation, teamwork

and leadership

· Increase their employability

· Create a sense of academic community

Knowing what participants should gain from the scheme enabled us to form a project

specifically designed to meet these aims.

Alongside our research we consulted with the faculty and the central Sheffield Mentoring

Scheme to discuss how our project would be different to what is already provided by this

pastoral service. This consultation also gave us an insight into how we would run the mentoring

sessions and match up our mentors to mentees. We decided that our project would be focused

on Arts and Humanities dualists only, at least initially, in order to see how well the project would

work on a smaller scale. Rather than a one to one mentor/mentee relationship we viewed our

project as having a more ‘discussion based session’ format. Therefore we proposed that each

mentor would have a maximum of 5 mentees who they would deliver a loosely planned session

to, on a particular academic theme such as referencing or exam technique. This would allow

there to be a focus in the session as well as allowing free discussion about specific issues of

concern for mentees. For the purpose of our pilot scheme and the time constraints we were

under, we planned that each mentor would deliver 2 sessions on topics they felt were relevant

to their course.

When looking at mentor/mentee match up we chose to assign mentees to mentors studying the

same course where possible. When an exact match of both subjects was not possible we

decided to match them to someone who studied at least one of the same subjects, ensuring

some level of commonality between mentors and mentees. In order to maximise the potential

for good matches we decided to recruit mentors first from all departments and then recruit

mentees, targeting specific departments to match them, based on the mentors already

recruited. Our recruitment was conducted through departmental emails, Staff-Student

committee meetings and more informal Facebook messaging asking participants to submit an

application form, including questions about their motivation for involvement and what they

specifically wanted to gain from the scheme.

Towards the end of semester 1 we created a timeline for semester 2 to organise what needed to

be done by set dates. A copy may be found in Appendix 2.2. We were each assigned a

management role, based on our own preference and strengths as highlighted by the relationship

map, to oversee the work being done on a specific task. These were coordination, recruitment,

training, publicity, ‘webmaster’ and skills resources.

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The skills resources element of our project was designed as a complementary part of the

mentoring scheme, providing guidance for mentors when delivering and planning their sessions

and providing information for the mentees with specific issues. We created a skills resource for

each department within the faculty and they provided information and links about issues such as

exam techniques, essay writing, and referencing as well as subject specific topics. Clare Scott,

the faculty librarian also provided assistance with the skills resources, supplying library

resources to complement the other information. We compiled the skills resources with advice

and approval of our Learning and Teaching Directors. In order to maximise the availability and

benefit of these skills resources we decided to upload them to a web-space, which was created

in semester 2.

When we reached the end of semester 1 we had reached the point of our project where

implementation would become our main focus. We knew what we hoped to achieve with our

project and what specific roles, such as publicity or recruitment, needed to be completed by

certain dates for the scheme to run successfully. We had begun to discuss issues which may

have arisen such as lack of response to recruitment and worked out how these problems could

be overcome so that we were prepared for the next semester. Particularly with such a long

break over Christmas and Exam period, having such a well planned outline of semester 2 meant

that after the break we were able to come back and know very quickly what needed to be done

to get our project started.

What We Did - January - April 2012

Mentor Recruitment

We began thinking about mentor recruitment after Christmas to make sure we could stick to

the timetable we had outlined and have at least two sessions for each mentor. We decided that

sending out an email to all Y2 arts & humanities students would be the best way to reach the

largest possible audience and get engaged and motivated people to respond. With some help

from LeTs we were able to set up our own email account. We drafted an email detailing the

scheme and the commitment it would require in order to gauge interest and requested contact

details of those who were interested in applying to make sure that we only allowed dualists

within the Arts & Humanities faculty to apply.

Meanwhile we created an application form to enable us to choose those who most seemed to fit

the role that we had created and to get a feel for whether the applicant had enough relevant

experience and was interested enough to motivate a younger student. This form was available to

download from the LeTS section of the Sheffield University website, to which those interested in

mentoring were directed in order to apply formally. We were initially slightly disheartened with

only 3 applicants that were eligible to participate and without a particularly diverse range of

subject combinations. We decided on further publicity, posted abbreviated versions of the

publicity on online society pages and sent out further publicity via email. Our final mentor count

before the training session was 9, which although initially disappointing, emphasised the need

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for the pilot scheme that we were running if the scheme were to run on a bigger scale in future.

This reminded us of the trial status of the project and pointed out the need for more publicity or

perhaps just better timing for future projects.

Mentor Training

The first objective when designing the mentor training session was to finalise the ideas for what

both the mentors and mentees could expect to gain from the scheme and the materials that the

mentors would be required to deliver. The majority of this work was done during the mentor

recruitment period, giving us a tight deadline to work to. Ideally we wanted both Clare Scott and

Bob McKay to be present for the training and to talk to the mentors about what they were

expected to deliver, the resources available to them, which restricted us in terms of time slots. It

was a tense period trying to coordinate mentor recruitment, booking a space for training,

getting refreshments and catering and fitting in with everybody’s availability. We had already

decided during the planning stage what the mentees would be aiming to get out of the scheme

so it was just a case of reconciling this with what the mentors would be doing and how this

would affect them. We also consulted with Sheffield Mentoring to get advice on how a mentor

should behave and what points they should avoid, bearing in mind that academic mentoring is a

very different service to pastoral support. Equally this consultation allowed us to identify and

address points that would be common to both.

The training session consisted of several talks with a short refreshment break. We began by

introducing our own roles in order to ground the project and make sure the mentors were

aware of our aims and their place in the bigger picture. Bob Mckay, our key academic contact

from the Faculty, gave a short talk on his goals for the scheme and a warned the mentors about

the dangers of plagiarism and collusion, risks we had highlighted that could emerge from

academic student led mentoring sessions, particularly for those who had already done modules

their mentees were studying. We followed Bob’s talk with our own expectations of the mentors

to guide them towards the kind of mentoring we had envisaged. Clare Scott (Faculty Librarian)

was then on hand to give an extensive presentation on the available resources provided by the

library accessible through MUSE, primarily to help with referencing and access to journals and

databases; our research had recognised that these are some of the main areas Arts and

Humanities students often run into difficulty with, particularly if they were not well explained in

first year. Preceding the interval we quickly ran through the issues that might come up that

mentors would NOT be required to deal with such as personal difficulties, requests for help on

producing assessed work and the possibility that they might not get on with their mentees.

The last section of the training concerned the running of the sessions. We highlighted the idea

that it was down to the mentors to decide what they thought would be the most appropriate

topic for them to cover in their sessions as specific disciplines might call for alternative skills but

also provided them with an initial plan to work from if they were stuck for ideas. We further

promoted the scheme and the benefits that it would provide for all participants such as

increased confidence, leadership and organisation in addition to a more thorough knowledge of

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the mentor’s own academic strengths and weaknesses and finally displayed a schedule for the

pilot scheme, including help with planning sessions if they felt they needed it along with an open

invitation to get in touch at any point if there were any queries.

Mentee Recruitment

Directed by our research findings we had decided that it would be preferable to offer mentees

mentors with exactly their subject combination where possible, so we did not begin mentee

recruitment until after we had finalised the applicants for mentoring positions in order to

advertise for matching mentees. We began publicity in the same way we had advertised for the

mentors; sending out a faculty wide email stating what they would gain from having a mentor

and specifying the target audience including a list of the dual combinations we had for mentors

and highlighting the increased benefits for applicants who matched at least one of the subjects

on offer.

Our primary concerns when it came to recruitment lay with the mentors. Our research had

suggested that the scheme would be popular so it came as a bit of a shock when mentees were

initially not forthcoming. Our first interest came two days prior to the deadline, we had

organised a meeting with the mentors to discuss session planning and had to break it to them

that we were not sure if we would be able to continue with the scheme. Fortunately we had

another applicant the day before the deadline and a further five on the day itself bringing us

almost up to a 1-1 mentor-mentee ratio. This was partly as a result of further publicity. We were

initially told by some departments that we did not have permission to go into first year lectures

to promote the scheme but with the endorsement of Bob McKay we were able to proceed with

this strategy which helped greatly to generate interest. After a deadline extension to allow for

the further publicity our final ratio was 9-8 mentees to mentors and subject categories allowed

us to swap some mentees to another mentor for the second session in order to ensure both

subjects were covered. We had targetted our publicity only in those departments from which

we had mentors to ensure that all mentors would have at least one half of their degree program

shared with a mentor.

It was agreed the if we were to run the scheme again we would definitely need to reconsider

tactics for mentee recruitment although it was mentioned in the evaluation that there would

likely be a much higher rate of uptake if the scheme were to be launched at the beginning of the

year when first years are perhaps more concerned for the year ahead.

Match-making

During our research, focus group participants stated the importance of having a mentor with

the same dual subjects in order to be able to offer maximum guidance on how to cope with the

specific difficulties that might exist for any one particular combination. We realised this would

be difficult to achieve particularly on such a small scale scheme but nevertheless we factored it

into the project and timed the recruitment so that we would be able to advertise our mentors

subjects to get matching mentees. Several of the mentees were able to be paired with an exact

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subject match, in these cases both sessions were to be lead by the same mentor focussing on a

variety of study skills. For those who we could not match directly match, we offered a series of

two sessions with different mentors who between them would have both of the mentee's

subjects to allow for any subject specific questions. There was only one mentee that did not fit

into either matching category, however this was not a problem as the main aim of the scheme

was to cover non-subject related academic issues so she was placed with a mentor who could

cover half of her course.

In spite of the small scale and pilot status of the scheme it was felt that the matching went very

smoothly and we were particularly lucky with the applicants that we received. Feedback

suggested that this was beneficial to everyone involved and aided in building a sense of

community within the department with relation to dualists, one of the secondary aims of the

scheme.

Website

We had decided in our timetabling meeting before Christmas that it would be beneficial to have

an online hub to upload all the skills resources we had created and any other useful information

or materials that we had gathered in order to support the scheme. Several suggestions were put

forward for the most logical way of doing this; a uspace page would ensure that all students

could get access and we would have a ready-made template without too much design work to

do, however we concluded that the uspace layout was not particularly intuitive and was not

always used effectively by students. The suggestion to use facebook was made but discounted as

too informal to use for a university associated scheme. Our next consideration was to create a

page to be linked from the SALT information page on the university website

<http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/lets/salt>, this would put across the desired level of formality

without requiring too much work although this would mean that all updates would have had to

be made through staff, increasing their workload and limiting our control over the content.

Our final decision was that we would make our own website through wordpress – a piece of free

blogging software that is user friendly and easily updatable. It was initially thought that we would

be restricted to a “.wordpress.com” domain, less professional but the most practical option but

after further research we discovered that it was possible to upload the software to a private

domain. We then requested a university domain to use with cpanel (the software used to edit

the webpage) with the web address <ahdualmentors.group.shef.ac.uk>. It would have been

possible to create the site directly through cpanel however without an experienced web

designer it would have been more difficult to use and would then run the risk of being

abandoned in the future if the next team did not have at least one member with relevant skills

and experience.

Work on the actual website began at the beginning of semester 2, as soon as the request for a

university domain was realised. Once the wordpress was mounted to the domain, it was a simple

task of creating a banner and uploading content. The first page to be created was to host the

library resources from Clare Scott (Faculty Librarian for Arts & Humanities), and subject

http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/lets/salt













http://ahdualmentors.group.shef.ac.uk/









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specific resource sheets put together by the SALTs individually. We later added to these the

powerpoint presentations used in the training session and a guide sheet for running a sample

mentoring session. The next section to be created was a brief “about” page detailing the aims of

the project, quickly followed by a calendar to show important events that participants should be

aware of. The last page to be created was to collect feedback from mentors with some basic

questions and a comment box below for mentors to post their responses - for this to work it

was necessary to create separate login accounts for each of the mentors and simultaneously,

individual accounts for each SALT. Meanwhile, new information and events were posted

alongside the rest of the site on a blog style homepage.

Whilst the website has not perhaps played a particularly large part this year in terms of the

running of the scheme, it has definitely been useful as a resource base, hosting the materials we

created for the mentors and as an information hub for SALT. The ease of editing will play an

important part in future schemes if the project is followed up and expanded. Screenshots can

be found in Appendices 3.1 and 3.2.

Running Sessions/Support during scheme

We gave all the initial information regarding the running of the scheme at the mentor training

evening and left the floor open for questions. Most people appeared to leave the session feeling

well informed and we had very few queries to deal with, with the exception of some confusion

over dates. We had organised a secondary support session the following week to give help and

advice to any mentors who felt unprepared to give their sessions, however all mentors seemed

confident that they would be able to deliver their sessions and needed very little additional

support. We also offered an optional second help session in week 7 but none of the participants

felt it was necessary so this did not go ahead. During the scheme the majority of the intervention

required was where mentees had failed to respond to contact from their mentors and in one

case a mentee decided to drop out of the scheme, unfortunately leaving a mentor without

anybody to meet with.

The team’s email account was checked daily during the course of the scheme to ensure quick

replies to any queries. However, extra support required from our SALT team was sporadic and

simple, perhaps due to a thorough training session and project outline. Nevertheless, it was

necessary to stress the importance of keeping in touch with the SALT team throughout the

project, an aspect of the scheme that was perhaps not fully considered in the planning stages.

Evaluation and Feedback

Evaluation

Towards the end of the Easter term, once mentors and mentees had met with each other at

least once, we conducted a focus group together with Bob McKay to determine how the scheme

had contributed to the participants’ experiences of the learning and teaching in the Arts and

Humanities Faculty. Although the focus group was small; only two mentors came to participate,

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we received some helpful responses, some of which you will find below. We also sent out a

questionnaire to mentors and mentees who were not present at the focus group. Through the

use of the data collected from the focus groups and questionnaires, this section will assess how

the scheme benefited those who participated, and will conclude with some evaluative thoughts

of our own as a SALT team.

Evaluating the organisation of the scheme

Both attendees of the focus group, who were also both mentors, and with whom we had had a

lot of communication via email, felt that the scheme had been well organised and that they had

been supported by the SALT team when they had any queries:

I felt well informed by emails and stuff like that... Getting in contact and knowing what

was going on was good. – James, mentor.

One questionnaire respondent also added:

Great support network offered by the SALT team. They are always willing to answer

questions via e-mail and offer lots of support to mentors throughout the scheme. –

survey respondent, mentor.

When asked if they felt anything could have been done better in terms of organisation, the only

fault expressed by respondents was the lack of mentees who applied. This was due to the timing

of the pilot project, and respondents suggested that if the scheme were to run again next year,

then perhaps the beginning of the academic year would be a better time to recruit mentees:

Yeah, the only problem was when there wasn’t that many mentees…but that was purely, I

think, because it was done in the middle of the year. I think if it had have been in the

beginning of the year, you would have got a lot more. –Rachel, mentor.

I think the greatest need for those first years is probably straight away when they’re

panicking about their first assignment, and I think the same thing with second years is

they’d be more willing to take on something fresh in the new year rather than in the

middle when you’re sort of getting into your own stuff. – Bryony, SALT.

Overall, respondents were complimentary about the organisation of the scheme and agreed that

it had been run well. The next part of the focus group concentrated on what different

participants (mentors/mentees) felt they gained from the scheme.

Awareness of academic skills resources

What was both surprising and also pleasing to see was that not only did mentees gain a lot from

the academic skills resources given to mentors, but mentors also did. Both focus group

respondents gave mention to the fact that having to teach and advise on particular issues

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affecting Dual Honours students (for instance, time management, differentiating between

referencing systems) also reaffirmed their own self-assurance in such issues:

It helped me with the Dual Honours part I suppose, it made me think about it more about

actually addressing it... Organisation was the main one, time management and stuff like

that. And referencing: I actually looked at each specific referencing system and realised

how different it was. – Rachel, mentor.

The majority of <information given> we were maybe familiar with – things like Google

Scholar and use of STAR catalogue, but there was other stuff that I wasn’t myself familiar

with, and I knew it’d be helpful to the first years so I had to go and, you know, learn it

myself. – James, mentor.

We were extremely pleased to hear this feedback as, not only were the mentees benefitting

from mentors’ help, but it was also helping the mentors personally. Respondents also

commented that the skills resources sheets each SALT team member created for their

department were helpful.

Awareness of other sources of support

As a main feature of the SALT mentoring scheme was for mentors to assist their mentees by

signposting, rather than risking doing all the hard work for them, an important aspect of the

scheme was to be aware of the other available sources of support, so as to relay this to mentees.

An interesting discussion came out of the questions based on this, and it was found that many

mentees had felt unable or unwilling to speak to academic staff/personal tutors about particular

issues. Both focus group respondents made reference to their mentees preferring to speak to a

student rather than a tutor:

She [her mentee] wanted someone with the experience instead of a member of staff, ‘cos

she felt like I’d know how she feels

. – Rachel, mentor.

They both said that they felt that I’d given them more information than their personal

tutors had. – James, mentor.

It is hoped that a positive feature of the academic peer mentoring scheme is the equal balance

between providing personal support and advice on topics such as referencing, and knowing

when and who to signpost mentees to when needed. Often, a student can feel more comfortable

speaking to a fellow student who has recent experience of being at university – especially as a

Dual Honours student, as, unless one’s personal tutor also studied a Dual Honours degree, it is

unlikely that they will have the exact knowledge and experience of what it is like to be a dualist.

Both mentors also agreed that they had felt stretched by the scheme, noting that the level of

responsibility as a mentor improved their confidence.

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Ideas for expanding the project to ensure it remains helpful

It has been universally acknowledged in our research that support for Dual Honours students in

terms of organisation and continuity between departments has not been as plentiful as perhaps

would have been liked. Of course, this is changing; the recent appointment of Ida Kemp as the

faculty’s Interdisciplinary Programmes Manager and James Crossley’s new project developing

interdisciplinary programmes will surely improve the support system for Dual Honours

students, and the continuation of this scheme could indeed offer students that second element

of backing that some feel cannot be adequately given from academic staff. Both of these staff

members have consulted with us and plan to use our findings to help inform their future work. A

few survey responses mentioned that the scheme would work better on a larger scale, but none

said that the pilot scheme had worked badly (or not at all). In this case it is fair to say that the

academic peer mentoring scheme has been an overall success – as far as pilot schemes go – and

it shows great promise to produce even more results on a larger scale. It would benefit greatly

from being continued next year, be this by a new team or indeed those participants of this year’s

scheme who expressed an interest in being involved again next year (of which there were a good

few).

Impact of Project

The students involved (twenty one in total) gained different things from the project, and had

different experiences depending on their role. The project also had impact at faculty level,

mainly through providing information about the experiences of undergraduates in the Arts and

Humanities, and Dual Honours students in particular.

Mentees

The main aim of the project was to positively impact the academic experiences of first year arts

and humanities students. Thirteen students were given mentoring through the project. They

were given the opportunity to attend two mentoring sessions, although some only attended one.

Through taking part in the project, the mentees have gained awareness of the academic skills

they will need for their courses. They have been given information about the resources, such as

library services, that are available to them. They have also been made aware of where they can

find academic support – personal tutors, people in the department and so on. The main way the

project has had an impact for mentees is not by giving them any information or resources that

are not available to other students, but by making them aware of where they can find these.

Mentees have had the opportunity to ask advice from an older student who, in most cases, has

had experience of doing their specific course. They have talked about issues relating to their

specific course from a student’s perspective. For most of the mentees, they have also had the

opportunity to meet other students from the same year who are doing the same course. This is

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worth mentioning since some of the Dual Honours issues identified by students were that some

found it difficult to meet others doing their specific combination of courses.

Mentors

The impact of the scheme for the eight mentors who took part has been in some ways similar to

that of the mentees. The mentors attended two training sessions, in which they were given any

information we thought would be useful to them in helping their mentees. This included

information on skills resources, library services and so on.

In their feedback, some of the mentors commented that in the course of giving advice to their

mentees they have had to learn new information and think more clearly about how best to

approach their course. This has led to them leaving the project with a firmer grasp of the best

way to approach their courses. Some mentioned that the information given to them in order to

pass on to their mentees has also been helpful to them – for example, information about where

to turn to for academic support.

Taking part in the project has also given the mentors experiences which would be good material

to add to a CV. They have had experience of organising meetings with their mentees, planning

and delivering their own mentoring sessions and developing interpersonal skills. Mentors who

participated were awarded with certificates recognising their contribution to the scheme.

Moreover, one mentor has already been provided with a detailed reference and has received

approval to include it in their Sheffield Graduate Award portfolio.

Faculty

The project has had an impact at faculty level through providing a lot of new information about

academic issues for Dual Honours students, and Arts and Humanities undergraduates in general.

The research conducted in planning the project focused on the problems faced by students that

were specific to Dual Honours courses and in areas where students felt they were not receiving

enough academic support. The project has raised awareness of areas where students are

having course-related difficulties, and some of the reasons they are having these difficulties –

such as information about academic support not being easily found by students.

In addition to this, we have created academic skills resources for all departments in the faculty.

These may be useful to students and other academic use in the future.

Recommendations for Future work

Academic Peer Mentoring

Our project evaluation and impact assessment have shown that academic peer mentoring

organised along similar lines to our pilot could benefit many students in years to come. If the

scheme was expanded and established as a permanent feature of learning and teaching in the

Arts and Humanities faculty it would allow successive cohorts of mentors to provide academic

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support, sharing their knowledge and experience with younger Dual Honours students, whilst

developing valuable skills in the process. Moreover, the unique insight which these Dual Honours

students can give would allow them to prepare their mentees to cope with the challenges which

come with interdisciplinary study, helping them to succeed in their time at university and

preparing them to become the next group of mentors. We would recommend that the scheme

be run as a three-tier system whereby mentors recruited from levels two and three are

matched with mentees from levels one and two. This structure would create the potential for

continuous peer mentoring, supporting students throughout the transitions between each level

and giving them a clearer view of their progression through their degree as a whole.

In order to make this happen we would make three recommendations. Firstly, we would advise

that those running the scheme next year be drawn as much as possible from the mentors and

mentees involved in this pilot. It is very important that students remain at the heart of this

scheme as they are best placed to understand student concerns and how best to engage and

support future participants. However, secondly, these students should be supported through

increased collaboration with academic and Learning and Teaching staff in the faculty. While we

have set up this project as a SALT team with a partly external perspective we have been

brilliantly supported by enthusiastic faculty staff. We would like to see the Arts and Humanities

faculty take ownership of this project in order to fully integrate it with faculty learning and

teaching priorities. As our pilot has shown, academic peer mentoring could be a means of

bringing together a large, interdisciplinary community, gaining rich feedback from students and

tailoring support to address their concerns. In this way we hope that staff and students would

feel more engaged with their faculty and the institution as a whole and begin to associate the

scheme and its aims with the ideals and goals embodied in the 'Sheffield Graduate'. Finally, we

would suggest that the scheme's length also be expanded. It was felt by many involved that

starting recruitment early in the academic year would maximise student uptake for the scheme.

Moreover, if mentoring began in the first semester, participants would receive valuable support

in the transition from A-level to degree-level study. Likewise, sessions spread across both

semesters would allow mentors to provide support and advice to their mentees to suit their

changing needs as they progressed.

With regard to the institution as a whole we believe that academic peer mentoring holds great

promise as a means of supporting and enhancing learning and teaching. Our project has

highlighted the value of establishing student to student learning and teaching relationships

across year groups. Participants commented on the ease of this relationship, which allowed

them to deliver support in a way which the personal tutoring system cannot. Furthermore,

mentoring of this kind allows the delivery of information and skills through a human link which

otherwise might be restricted to a digital resource. 'Contact' time on degree courses is a key

priority for applicants and one which is likely to increase following the imposition of new fee

levels. Staff time, however, is universally constrained. While peer mentoring should categorically

not be seen as a replacement for contact with academics, it is clear that this type of academic

16

peer mentoring can complement students' learning experiences, providing a contact which

benefits all involved.

Skills Resources

Our evaluation recognised that our Skills Resources, created to aid the mentors, have

applications beyond this scheme. It was suggested that these concise 'signposts' to academic

support be used as the basis for workshops on key areas like referencing, which proved

especially popular amongst mentees. As they were developed specifically to address the areas

highlighted in our research, these Skills Resources demonstrate those common academic skills

which are most important to students across the faculty. Therefore, we would hope that they,

along with our research itself, might act as recommendations for faculty attention.

Personal SALT Experiences and Reflections

Throughout the year team members reflected on the project and our experiences as Student

Ambassadors for Learning and Teaching. Copies of our blog posts can be found in Appendix 4.1.

The following are our summary reflections from the end of the year.

George: Being a SALT has been brilliant and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who has

an interest in their degree and wants to make a positive difference to this institution. The most

rewarding aspect for me has been working with an enthusiastic team putting our energies into

this project and seeing that enthusiasm reflected back by staff and students. It is really exciting

to think that what started as an idea in our first meeting back in September developed through

our efforts over the year and could now become a scheme which helps many students in future!

While it felt daunting at the time, I really think the freedom we had to address an issue of our

choosing, to work in our own way and mostly to our own deadlines, was what made this scheme

great. Being a SALT has not always been easy and our project threw up many challenges.

However, overcoming those problems was part of what made SALT such a good learning

experience. SALT has put me in a variety of new situations (not least leading a team of scarily

organised people!) and it has taught me not just about working with others and running a

project, but also a great deal about myself.

Tom: I’ve really enjoyed being a SALT and working with a great team of people. The work we

have had to do throughout the project has been incredibly varied and so has been a really good

learning experience. For me, one of the most interesting parts of being a SALT has been learning

about the faculty’s approach to learning and teaching. It has been interesting to find out about

the academic issues undergraduates have that the faculty wants to address, and it has been

great to contribute towards addressing them. I feel like our SALT team have worked really well

together. The mentoring project involved a lot of planning and with all of the different tasks to be

done it could have easily become confusing, but everyone was really well organised. Working on

something that makes a difference to students’ academic experience is the reason I wanted to

17

become a SALT, and I feel like we have achieved this. It has been really rewarding to work on a

project that is aimed at making a difference to students.

Laura: I joined the A&H SALT team a few months into the Autumn Semester, and found myself

working with an enthusiastic team of people who all loved their degrees and just wanted to help

other people love theirs. Although the project had already been decided upon when I joined I

jumped into it wholeheartedly! I loved what we were doing, and how we were free to go about it

in whichever way we thought was best. We lacked interest initially, but persisted with our

publicity and managed to build up a fair amount of mentees and mentors. The only way the

scheme could be improved is to start it at the beginning of the Autumn Semester when first year

Dual Honours students need mentoring the most. Other than that, the scheme was nearly

perfect! We worked together as a team, we were organised, enthusiastic and willing, we helped

improve the mentees learning experience at the university and taught the mentors skills that

they can hopefully put into good practice time and time again. What more could we ask for?

Hannah: The SALT experience is definitely not one for the faint of heart, it’s a lot of commitment

and you do have to be prepared to pull your weight. Fortunately everyone in our SALT team has

been brilliant which enabled us to come together to form a great team. It’s been an interesting

experience getting more of an insight to the inner workings of the university and in terms of

personal development I’ve learnt a lot. Being able to work efficiently as a team and actually

create a project that has the potential to evolve in the future is one of the most exciting things

for me and I really feel like our team has made an impact on the university and could affect

students’ experiences in a positive way. I’m really proud of what we’ve managed to achieve and

have made some really good friends, and even though it’s a steep learning curve, it’s also a great

deal of fun and opens up a myriad of opportunities.

Bryony: I feel my organisational skills have improved massively as a SALT as we constantly set

and meet deadlines on our projects. Also, I have had to speak to many unfamiliar academic staff

and this has improved my confidence and interpersonal skills as well.

I am very proud of what my SALT team has achieved. I feel we all cared about the success of our

project and each other and the experience has been a very positive one. I have enjoyed it, feel I

have made new friends, picked up new skills, improved the learning and teaching within my

faculty and got paid for all this too! I think if you focus on building a clear outline for a project

and get to know each other well then being a SALT will generally be smooth sailing and beneficial

experience for all those reasons mentioned. I’m looking forward to the Showcase in April when

we can look back on what we have achieved this year with pride and share experiences with

other SALTs from other faculties.

Katy: I have enjoyed being a SALT greatly over the past year - along with meeting a great group

of people I feel I have improved my organisational skills, made connections with other members

of staff whom I may have never met if not for the project, and worked as part of a team to create

a scheme which, in my opinion, has been really worthwhile for all those involved. I would

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recommend being a SALT to anyone who has a passion for their degree and learning new skills -

and the Showcase was a great way to end a really fantastic experience; it was really interesting

to see what the other teams had been up to!

Alyssa: I originally applied for SALT, mainly because it was a flexible job, fitting well alongside my

third year timetable and allowing me to get more involved in how things work in my department

and the university. I had no idea how much I would enjoy it and how beneficial it would be, both

personally and for the students impacted by the project we eventually created. The best thing

about being a SALT has definitely been the people I have been able to work with; all of the A&H

team got along so well, most of the time it didn’t feel like work. We were able to work on a

project that really meant something to us as students, and gave us the opportunity to change

things for future students. The skills I have gained through being a SALT are so extensive and if

asked, I don’t think I would be able to think of any disadvantages to being a SALT- perhaps aside

from the fact that I won’t be here next year to carry on! The showcase was a really great event,

allowing us to see what other teams have been working on in the past year and a chance to

celebrate the achievements made across the University.

19

Appendices

Appendix 1.1 Report on Arts and Humanities Dual Honours Experience using Focus

Group and Individual Questionnaire Responses taken November 2011

Written by A&H Student Ambassadors for Learning and Teaching Laura

Clark and Tom Quinn.

Your Dual Honours Experience

● The general consensus is that Dual Honours students do not feel equally involved within

both of their departments; often this is down to the individual and depends on what

societies they would join as well as which course they enjoy more. However, dual

students that are part of a smaller department or a department with a tendency to have

a larger community of dual students (e.g. modern languages) feel equally included in

both departments.

● While some students do not see the need for a personal tutor some find the

communication between their tutors is lacking. One participant stated that they only had

one tutor which caused problems as this tutor could only answer questions about their

own department.

● Students feel that they should have been told what to expect with a Dual Honours degree

e.g. restricted module choice. On the one hand studying for a Dual Honours degree

allows the students to develop a wider range of skills, but on the other hand they are not

able to focus on specific subject areas. Here we have to remember that it depends on the

course, for some courses it’s beneficial to undertake a dual degree as it is better

academically and career wise.

● Students are being forced to choose modules they are not totally interested in because

clashes in the timetable. Students are not able to take the modules they’re interested in

because of core module choices that clash with the modules they’re really interested in

taking. This could be improved if there was more communication between departments

that usually have dual students. Similarly, essay deadlines all take place within a short

period of time, again this could be resolved with better departmental communication.

20

● Overall the participants seem to have enjoyed their experience as Dual Honours

students. It generally seems to be administration (e.g. timetabling, essay deadlines) that

causes the most problems for them. There’s also an expectation that the students should

learn different skills per department, whereas Single Honours students have twice as

much time to learn one set of skills, e.g. referencing.

Mentoring Scheme

● The mentoring scheme would be beneficial if the mentor had done/was doing exactly the

same dual course, all dual degrees cannot be generalised. The participants did not seem

too keen with having a PhD mentor as they may have forgotten issues undergrads have.

Similarly, if they had not studied at Sheffield there would be little they could help with.

Some felt that perhaps one initial meeting would be helpful and then having that person

as a contact for any future issues they have. Again it depends on the course as to ways in

which a mentor could help.

● Generally, most preferred the idea of group mentoring sessions as this would require

less mentors and it would create a more relaxed environment. Further, students could

help each other with issues they have had. Suggestions for group size tended to be under

10 people per 2 mentors.

● Everyone agreed that weekly meetings would be too often. Most suggested meeting only

once or twice and then keeping in touch online or on an as/when basis. An early

introduction to the mentors in intro week would probably benefit a lot of first years as

they could help with registration. It was suggested that mentors could have ‘office hours’

allowing any of their mentees to come and talk to them within that time.

● Both focus groups showed an interest in improving essay writing skills and referencing as

neither is really covered in their courses. These are the skills that most students would

be interested in improving and having mentoring sessions on. As for the actual session, all

agreed that they did not want the sessions to be too much like a lecture or seminar, but

at the same time they did not want them to be like socials (meetings in the pub). The

suggestion was also made that skills be tailored to individual course deadlines/the

wishes of the mentees.

Summary

● Biggest disadvantage with Dual Honours: time management/timetable clashes

● Biggest advantage with Dual Honours: wider range of skills

● Mentors should be either UG’s or MA’s

● Meetings should take place initially at the beginning of the year and then only when the

mentees needed help.

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● Main issues for Dual Honours: timetabling, essay writing skills, referencing, essay

deadlines

Appendix 1.2 Report on Arts and Humanities Dual Honours Experience using 2011 National Student

Survey Comments

Written by A&H Student Ambassadors for Learning and Teaching: Bryony Dent, Tom Quinn,

Hannah Milton, George Horgan, Katy Robinson, Alyssa Campion and Laura Clark.

Archaeology

Dual Honours Experience

● Not enough teaching time.

● Wide range of module choice - Ability to choose a ‘tailor made’ course.

● Good level of support from staff throughout whole degree, Enthusiastic staff and good

relationship with staff due to size of department.

● Lack of cohesion between departments.

● Difficulty of contacting some staff members.

Mentoring

● Compulsory personal tutor meetings a good thing for regular staff contact.

● Lack of resources especially in first year- more information on other sources?

● Suggestion of more PDP and personal tutor use in History.

● More help needed for assignments before deadline, lack of contact time.

● Treatment of undergraduate matters as irrelevant.

● Lack of careers advice, placement help etc.

English Language and Linguistics/Literature


● Staff did not communicate departmental/staff changes.

● Lack of communication between lit/lang/ling departments so there were clashes

meaning students had to pick undesirable modules and over-subscription.

● Lack of spaces for students to print work in the English building.

● Group assessments where your group receives the same mark regardless of individual

contribution is unfair and infuriating.

● Module advice and course outlines are unclear.

● Lack of encouragement and support for quieter, less confident individuals in seminars.

Mentoring

● Assessment feedback is hugely unclear and lacks detail on areas to improve.

● Not enough contact time between students and tutors.

22

● Lack of defining differences in grade boundaries.

● Inconsistency with feedback, marking appears subjective.

● Tutors are unapproachable and not friendly or sympathetic.

● Not enough lecturing on specific writing techniques, more focused on subjective textual

analysis.

French, Germanic Studies, Hispanic Studies, Modern Languages


● Lack of organisation in departments.

● High incidence of timetable clashes and the late release of timetables which gave little

opportunity to resolve problems before the start of term.

● Many changes of course details and timetabling not effectively communicated before

starting.

● Complaints of deadline clashes and lack of interdepartmental communication.

● Choosing to take Dual Honours resulted in decreased opportunities for module choice

and interdepartmental clashes further restricted this.

● One student mentioned lacking a sense of belonging in either department.

● Inconsistencies across departments regarding organisation, required skills and

assessment.

● Difficulties in time management when studying a dual degree.

● BAML students (3 languages) only visit 2 countries in 3rd year and thus struggle to keep

up with their peers in final year.

Mentoring

● Students discouraged from contacting personal tutors.

● Staff and tutors not treating students in an adult manner with the necessary respect.

● Tutors do not know their students and are unable to help.

● Lecturers unapproachable

● Poor tutor organisation; do not know anything about their tutees – concerns over

reference writing.

● Great variation in opinion on personal tutors – very dependent on luck of the draw.

History


● Communication between departments is poor. (6 comments)

● Communications problems between students and dept.

● Inconsistent feedback standard between two depts.

● Workload division between two depts. Is bad and leads to deadline clashes.

● Dual Honours restricts your choices.

● Personal Tutors do not communicate with you/each other enough.

● Feedback criticised.

Mentoring

23

● Essay-writing/plagiarism advice would be helpful in Y1.

● Feedback was rated poorly, perhaps mentors could provide a different source of

feedback/advice.

Music


● Good variety of module choices in the music department, although some dual hons.

students commented that because many of them alternate between years, and they

operate on a first come first served basis, if you miss the opportunity to do a module, it is

unlikely you’ll have the chance to try again next year.

● This could mean that a languages dual hons. student (for example, Music and French)

might have a lot of the same module options in their second and fourth year, whereas

students who do not take a year out get to choose from a range of other modules in their

third year.

Mentoring

● Last year due to a lot of funding cuts, many modules ended up being taught by

postgraduate students, featuring heavily in the replies as a negative point. If we wanted

postgrads to help mentor students, Music students may not find this very beneficial as

we already receive a lot of contact time with PHD students.

● Many commented on the enthusiastic and approachable nature of the staff, meaning it

may be fairly easy to get them on board... hooray!

Philosophy


● “Doing a Dual Honours degree is not a good option in my case. Doing history and

philosophy.”

Mentoring Scheme

● “I had some personal problems and the tutor was amazing in helping me with them.”

● “The right amount of support from the department when facing personal difficulties

which had an impact on my success on course.”

Russian and Slavonic Studies


● Many enjoyed the year abroad.

● Many found the department disorganised.

● Communication between departments not good, especially timetables, where there

were a lot of issues.

Mentoring

● Some of the staff members are not very approachable (although certain ones are), so

perhaps student mentors need to make sure they are contactable if staff members are

not.

24

Summary:


● Tutors – Many comments praised good support from personal tutors. However, others

emphasised lack of approachability and understanding of students’ issues. In addition,

some mentioned being actively discouraged from contacting their personal tutor.

● Communication – Many complained that communication from their departments and

especially between departments was poor, negatively affecting support whilst creating

timetabling problems, deadline clashes and a heavier workload for dualists.

● Module Choice – Respondents often felt more restricted regarding module choice

compared to single honours students, though Archaeology was an exception.

● Feedback – While criticised in general, some noted that the standard and style of

feedback varied greatly across the Faculty, affecting Dual Honours most.

● Administration – Some departments were criticised for lack of organisation regarding

timetabling and setting of deadlines which affected dualists most, making resolving

clashes more difficult.

Mentoring Scheme

● Postgraduates – Where students already have post-graduate seminar tutors mentees

may not find post-grad mentees effective.

● Approachability – Mentors should be friendly and easily contactable.

● Skills/advice – Mentors may be able to address dualist-specific skills such as time

management, coping with deadline clashes and heavy workload; and inconsistencies in

assessment requirements (e.g. referencing systems). Meanwhile, as students they might

provide an alternative source of feedback as well as more general subject-specific skills

like writing style, revision techniques.

● Contact time - Several complained of the lack of contact hours and help before

assessments, mentoring could help tackle this.

● Resource availability - Though not necessarily a dual-specific problem, mentors could

advise mentees on locating resources and strategies for dealing with unavailability of

resources.

Appendix 1.3 Report on Arts and Humanities Dual Honours Experience using 2011 National Student

Survey Statistical Data

Written by Laura Clark, Student Ambassador for Learning and Teaching, Biblical Studies.

English and History- 16 students out of a possible 26 completed the survey

25

Teaching- 91% are satisfied on average

● Overall, above 88% of students agree that the teaching is good on the course.

● The department received particularly high marks (94%) for enthusiasm and offering

good explanations.

Assessment and Feedback- 66% are satisfied on average

● Here there were mixed reviews on the strength of feedback given. In categories of fair

assessment the department received 88% and 75% for a good amount of detail in the

comments received.

● However, only 38% of students thought the marking criteria was clear in advance.

Academic Support- 75% are satisfied on average

● Received 63% for good advice.

● 94% of students felt they were able to contact lecturers/tutors for extra help.

Organisation and Management- 75% are satisfied on average

● 3/4 of those who took part in the survey felt that the timetable worked efficiently.

● A good 81% of students felt the course ran smoothly.

Learning Resources- 80% are satisfied on average

● 100% were satisfied with the library resources

● However, only 57% felt they were able to look at specialised resources when they needed

to.

Personal Development- 85% are satisfied on average

● Over 81% of students felt that they have in some way improved, either in confidence

(88%) or with the skills that they have developed.

Overall Satisfaction

● 100%

English Language and Linguistics- 34 students out of a possible 50 completed the survey


● 100% of students agree that the lecturers are enthusiastic and believe the course to be

intellectually stimulating.


● Just over half of those who completed the survey found the marking criteria clear in

advance.

● Again, only half of the students felt that feedback for essay/exams was helpful in

clarifying things they did not understand.

26


● 100% felt that they could contact staff when they needed to.

● 3/4 of students were happy with the advice and support they were given by staff.


● 91% agree that the timetable is efficient.

● 85% agree that the course runs smoothly.


● 91% are satisfied with the library resources


● Over 80% of students agree that the course has helped them improve communication

skills as well as improving confidence.


● 94%

English language and Literature- 24 students out of a possible 35 completed the survey


● 88% think that the staff have made the subject interesting.

● 92% find the course intellectually stimulating.


● Only 63% think feedback is prompt, while only 54% find this feedback helpful.

● 79% have found the feedback to be detailed.

● Only 75% think that assessments and marking are fair.


● Although 92% agree that they can contact a member of staff when necessary, only 54%

find the advice offered to be helpful in relation to study choices.



● But only 3/4 agree that the course is run smoothly.


● A good 96% of students are satisfied with library resources.


27

● 63% feel that the course has improved their confidence.

● 88% feel that their communication skills have improved.


● 92%

French and Hispanic Studies- 17 out of a possible 26 students completed the survey


● A good 94% of students think that the staff are good at explaining things.

● Only 3/4 find the course intellectually stimulating.


● Only 59% think that the marking criteria is clear in advance.

● This has led to only 3/4 finding the assessments and marking fair.

● Again, only 53% find the feedback helpful.


● 65% could contact a member of staff when they needed to.

● Even though 71% felt they received good advice and support with their studies, only 59%

agreed that they received sufficient support when making study choices.


● 41% felt the course ran smoothly.

● 65% agreed that the timetable was efficient.

● 53% were satisfied that any changes to the course were communicated well.


● 88% were satisfied with the library resources


● 94% agree that their communication skills have improved and 88% think they have

become more confident overall.


● 76%

History and politics- 16 out of a possible 27 students completed the survey

Teaching- 98% % are satisfied on average

28

● 100% agreed that the staff are enthusiastic; good at explaining things and have

made the subject interesting.

Assessment and Feedback- 65% % are satisfied on average

● 69% agree that the marking criteria is clear beforehand.

● 56% agree that feedback is prompt, while 69% find this feedback helpful.

Academic Support- 92% % are satisfied on average

● 100% have received sufficient help and advice.

● 94% have been able to contact a member of staff when necessary.

Organisation and Management- 85% % are satisfied on average

● 81% are happy with the timetabling.

● 94% agree that the course is run smoothly.

Learning Resources- 87% % are satisfied on average

● 88% are happy with both library and IT resources.

Personal Development- 88% % are satisfied on average

● 88% feel that their communication skills have been improved

● 94% agree that they are more confident.


● 100%

International History and International Politics- 12 out of a possible 16 students

completed the survey


● 100% agree that the staff have made the subject interesting and are good at

explaining things.

● 100% find the course intellectually stimulating.


● While 92% agree that the feedback has been prompt, only 58% agree that the

feedback is helpful in explaining things they did not understand.

● 92% agree that the marking criteria was clear in advance.


● 92% agree that they have been able to contact a member of staff when they needed to

and that they have received good advice and support with their studies.

29


● 92% find the timetable to be efficient

● 100% of students feel that the course runs smoothly.


● 100% of students are satisfied with both library and IT resources.


● 92% agree that the course has improved their confidence as well as their communication

skills.


● 92%

Modern Languages with Interpreting- 12 out of a possible 18 students completed the

survey


● 100% agree that the staff are enthusiastic

● 92% agree that the course is intellectually stimulating and the staff make the subject

interesting.


● 3/4 of students are satisfied with the feedback they receive.

● 92% agree that the marking criteria is made clear in advance.


● 100% feel that they are able to contact a member of staff when necessary.

● But only 67% agree that the advice they receive is helpful when making study choices.


● Only 58% feel that the course is run smoothly.



● 100% find the IT resources satisfactory

● 92% are happy with the library resources.


● 100% agree that their communication skills have improved while doing this

course.

● 92% have found that their confidence has improved.

30


● 83%

Overall Summary

Generally, most students are satisfied with:

● Library resources

● IT resources

● Teaching

● Being able to talk to a member of staff

However, there is a trend for students to be unhappy with:

● Marking Criteria

● Feedback from essays/exams

● The quality of advice given in relation to study choices

31

Appendix 2.1

Relationship Map

Appendix 2.2

Timeline Plan

32

Appendix 3.1

Website Home Page

33

Appendix 3.2

Website Resources Page

34

Appendix 4.1 Blogging

Throughout the year we reflected on our mentoring project and our SALT experiences by

writing blog posts which were shared on Uspace. Here are some excerpts which give a first-

hand impression of our feelings early on and in the midst of running our project.

Bryony:

Nov 17, 2011

My experience as a SALT has been an extremely positive one. The Arts and Humanities meeting

dynamic is fantastic as it allows everyone to share their views and ideas. We use Doodle Poll

weekly to find a time to suit everyone so you never feel that you are inconvenienced. We’ve also

had a low-key social which was a really nice opportunity to meet other SALTs from all faculties

who I probably would have never met otherwise! We are planning another, much louder,

fancydress ‘S’ themed bar crawl social in the next few weeks.

At the moment we are in the process of researching and designing a collaborative academic

peer mentoring scheme specifically tailored for first year Dual Honours students within the

faculty of Arts and Humanities. The scheme would provide an opportunity for students to voice

their academic concerns, reinforce their sense of community within both department and

develop a set of skills applicable to both their subjects. We arrived at this idea through

discussion of areas which we personally feel need addressing in Arts and Humanities which is

great as you feel the project has importance to you as well as future students.

I think the best part of SALT is definitely my group. Everyone is so lovely and you definitely get a

feeling of finding a new set of friends. SALT develops a variety of transferable skills such as

creativity and organisation which I know will benefit me personally and of course look good on

the all important CV. Also, getting paid to be a SALT is definitely a bonus!

George:

Nov 20th, 2011

I'm loving being a SALT so far! It may sound cheesy but it is great to be part of an enthusiastic,

motivated group of people working together to achieve something positive for our University.

Meetings and working with the other SALTs is definitely the best part of the experience for me.

After spending the first few weeks pitching project proposals to each other and comparing our

ideas we fixed upon an academic peer mentoring scheme aimed at first-year Dual Honours

students but with the potential for future expansion. We all agreed that being able to discuss

academic issues with older students could really help first-years to cope with the transition

from A-level to degree-level work. Moreover, we identified the aims of boosting Dual Honours

students' sense of community within Arts and Humanities and helping them to overcome the

specific challenges that dualists face.

35

After beginning to plan this project we soon realised that we needed to seek out the current

opinions of dualists in order to make sure what we created would be genuinely beneficial. As a

group we created a list of key questions on mentoring and the Dual Honours experience in

general and put them to students individually and at Focus Groups. At the same time we used

the latest National Student Survey data for the faculty to further inform our research. Though

this research stage has taken us on a slight detour it's been really interesting to conduct and will

help inform not just our project but hopefully the faculty's overall approach to Dual Honours

students.

As our project progresses I feel that we are being given both the support and the independence

that we need to be successful. The enthusiasm and helpful input from faculty and Learning and

Teaching staff has been great. Nevertheless I feel that we as a team have control and ownership

of the project, which really helps. Obviously it's not all plain sailing and creating a project from

scratch is quite daunting, there are so many questions to answer and decisions to make. I don't

think we could have foreseen the amount of research that has been necessary to allow us to

make informed decisions about the project. Even now we have completed this we face the

challenge of adapting the project to suit our targeted participants whilst staying true to our

original aims. In addition, being a SALT has required quite a lot of commitment and organisation,

especially when it comes to communication. However, the benefits far outweigh this; after only

eight weeks I feel that the scheme has already given me a great deal. Not only is the work fun and

rewarding but there are constant opportunities to develop new skills and step outside your

comfort zone. Moreover, leading such a great team is a really positive experience. I really enjoy

our meetings, it doesn't feel like work!

Katy:

Nov 28th, 2011

Being one of the newly appointed SALTs I wasn’t sure what to expect: A little bit like being the

new kid at school I wasn’t sure if me and Laura (the Biblical Studies SALT who was appointed at

the same time as me) would feel a bit weird going into a group who had already had time to get

to know each other. But it wasn’t like that at all! I’m sure Laura would agree that from the start

we felt welcome and included – and it’s been so nice to meet some new people from other

courses who are all focused on improving the learning and teaching here at Sheffield.

I came in to the A&H SALT group at the point when the existing SALTs had decided on an

academic peer mentoring scheme for first year Dual Honours students – and immediately loved

the idea. I think more focus definitely needs to be given to dualists, and the transition from

school to university – especially as they have not one course to juggle, but two! We started off by

conducting lots of research which I’ve really enjoyed: it’s involved focus groups, reading up on

National Student Survey reports, making relationship maps of all the helpful people we know,

and loads more exciting things. I’m a bit of a geek when it comes to doing research so being able

to do it about my own university has been really interesting, and I’ve loved it.

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We’re now in the stage of actually planning the model for the scheme – and we’ve just split up

some management roles between us. Myself and Tom (the Philosophy SALT) are in charge of

collecting up a load of skills resources for the mentors to use once they’ve been trained etc. This

has involved trying to find out exactly what students require when they first start at uni – and

we’ll be designing material for all sorts of things: from the more general skills like referencing, to

more course-specific things, (for instance, seeing as I’m the Music SALT, I’ll be designing

materials on how to practice efficiently, how to listen to music actively rather than just having it

on in the background etc). It’s been fascinating so far and I’m really looking forward to working

with Tom and the other SALTs to collect all this information!

Next on the agenda then, is meeting with the Arts and Humanities Library Co-ordinator, Clare

Scott, and also the Sheffield Mentoring people who are going to give us some tips on how to

train mentors, and how they match them to the mentees. Looks set to be an interesting week!

George:

March 04th, 2012

About to begin week 5 of Semester 2 and we are in the thick of organising our SALT project.

Having sent out publicity at the end of January exams and finalised our skills resources we spent

the first two weeks of term monitoring mentor applications and planning our mentor training

session. We received a great deal of interest but unfortunately had to turn many away due to the

strict eligibility criteria for our pilot. We decided during the planning stage to restrict mentor

applicants to level 2 Dual Honours students taking both of their subjects within the Arts and

Humanities faculty. As over half of dualists in our faculty also take a social science this meant

there was a considerable number who applied to the scheme but could not be accepted. In

addition, a problem which we had not entirely planned for was applications from English 'dual'

students. We decided not to accept these on the grounds that both of their subjects were

covered by the same department. Nevertheless we were able to recruit eight eligible mentors

for the training session. This took place at the start of week three and was a real success. Faculty

staff were able to speak to the mentors in order to give them clear advice on their role, collusion

and correct advice to give to mentees regarding library resources. Meanwhile, each of the SALT

team delivered part of our overall presentation which included outlining the aims of SALT and

the reasons for choosing this project, the aims of the mentoring scheme, what was expected

from mentors, what wasn't expected from them, what mentors and mentees should gain, an

outline of the structure of the scheme and help planning their first group mentoring session. The

Faculty and LeTs were really helpful in providing us with the Jessop West Exhibition space and

some lovely catering which helped make the evening run smoothly.

With a finalised bunch of mentors we proceeded to send out publicity to recruit mentees to pair

them with. We planned that each mentor would have a maximum of 5 mentees so we had a

potential of 40 mentees. As planned, we targeted publicity at level one dualists who were taking

the same or similar subject combinations to those of our mentors in the hope of getting close

matches, a point that our research had flagged up as important. Unfortunately, unlike recruiting

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the mentors we have so far had no success with online publicity through university email,

subject societies and social media. Therefore, at our last meeting we decided to step up

publicity and try to make it more personal. So we have contacted staff within departments in

order to try to get personal recommendations to eligible students and have arranged to speak at

the start of first-yr lectures to plug the scheme - a slightly daunting prospect, but hopefully a

technique that will help persuade students to get involved.

So far this term has been a lot more hectic than the last and although we planned pretty

thoroughly for each week there have been unexpected problems and things to react to. In

addition the team as a whole has been a lot busier with university courses this term and

arranging group meetings has been less easy. Despite this I'm really pleased with what we've

managed to do and everyone has risen to the challenges, taking on more responsiblity for each

of our separate management roles as well as all pitching in to help with general tasks. Moreover,

I feel more confident than before that if we can run it, this mentoring scheme will really benefit

the students involved. The mentors are enthusiastic, well trained and now have a new SALT

mentoring scheme website to refer to for resources and helpful materials. While this is great, it

also increases the pressure to recruit mentees and this is my main worry at present.

Nevertheless, I'm confident that we will make a success of the scheme whatever happens; we

have already been able to conduct valuable research and liaise with faculty staff and students to

help inform future policy on Dual Honours learning and teaching and I'm sure our SALT work will

help to make positive changes in the future.

Bryony:

March 13th, 2012

Things have become much more intense due to the nature of our project everything has come

into motion this semester. Our mentoring project has not received as much response as we

would have liked which has caused the A&H team a fair bit of stress but we have enough

participants to run a pilot scheme now which is the main thing! We altered a lot of our plans to

adjust to this and so far everything is going well and both mentors and mentees have been

positive!

I feel my organisational skills have improved massively as a SALT as we constantly set and meet

deadlines on our projects. Also, I have had to speak to many more academic staff (which sounds

daft but really as a student you end up speaking most to other students) and this has improved

my confidence and interpersonal skills aswell. I have found that my semester has been much

busier all round due to taking up a part-time job and an internship 2 days a week but my team

has been great about fitting me in around my schedule and delegating tasks to do outside of the

meetings to make up hours, make sure I’m still involved and putting my fair share into the

running of this project. Amy is also great at quickly responding to and solving any queries I’ve

had, SALT related or otherwise, so the support has been there from fellow SALTs or staff when

needed. Basically, I would encourage people who would like to apply to be a SALT for 2012/13 to

consider this as it is very flexible and I’m sure you will be placed with people who understand

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and care about your situation and will help you be a SALT without detrimental effects to your

other commitments.

I am very proud of what my SALT team has achieved. I feel we all care about the success of our

project and each other and the experience has been a very positive one. I have enjoyed it, feel I

have made new friends, picked up new skills, improved the learning and teaching within my

faculty and would you believe I get paid for all this too! I think if you focus on building a clear

outline for a project and get to know each other well then being a SALT will generally be smooth

sailing and beneficial for all those reasons mentioned. I’m looking forward to the Showcase in

April when we can look back on what we have achieved this year with pride and share

experiences with other SALTs from other faculties.

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