{fan, rbm}@cs.uregina.ca
This paper describes our efforts to develop an undergraduate students mentoring program at the Computer Science Department, University of Regina, Canada. The undergraduate mentoring program enrolls good senior undergraduate students in senior courses as mentors for junior students enrolled in a lower level course. The program has been offered for three years now. Both the senior students as mentors and the junior students taking the lower level course have responded to the program very positively. This paper provides the design and implementation of the program. The authors also try to explore some philosophical implications of the mentoring program to undergraduate teaching. Further improvements for the program are also proposed.
KEY WORD: tutoring, CS education research, collaboration.
1. Introduction
The mentoring program in the
University of Regina started in the winter semester of 2000. The program was
inspired originally by the model from the Stanford University[1,2] and it was
designed to fit in our curriculum and laboratory oriented approach to teaching
computer science. The goal of the
mentoring program is to provide an interactive atmosphere that will help junior
computer science students to develop valuable analytical programming skills and
also provide an opportunity for senior students to develop organizational,
teaching and leadership skills. In
creating this type of environment, the junior students enrolled in a
fundamental course have the opportunity to interact with more knowledgeable
students in their chosen field of discipline. The senior mentoring students, in
turn, are expected to develop leadership and organization skills. They will also gain valuable experience in
lab teaching and one-on-one tutoring.
2. Description of the Mentoring Program at the University of Regina
2.1 General Description of the Mentoring
Program
The mentoring program in the
University of Regina has the following structure. The junior students enrolled
in computer science course CS210 (Data Structures and Algorithms) are divided
into smaller sections. Each section is lead by a mentor, who is a senior
computer science student enrolled in CS490 (Teaching Computer Science). The instructor for the CS210 course will
deliver lectures to the class just as in other courses. There is also an instructor who is
responsible for CS490 course requirements.
The mentors mark submitted assignments interactively with the students
enrolled in CS210 on a weekly basis during the lab time. At these interactive weekly sessions, the
mentors are expected to answer questions that the CS210 students may have about
the assignment.
Weekly meetings have been
arranged for the mentors and the course instructors for CS210 and CS490. The meetings give the instructors an
opportunity to provide necessary training to the mentors in regarding to the
course materials, presentation skills, and the marking scheme for each upcoming
assignment. The meetings also give a
chance to the mentors to voice their concerns and students' feed back on the
lectures.
The surveys show the students
provide very positive comments to the program.
2.1 Mentor Selection
It is the course CS490
instructor's responsibility to select the mentors. A formal process has been
developed to select mentors.
2.2 Program Organization
It is expected that the mentors
will spend about ten hours per week in the CS490 courses. Each mentor will be
in charge of nine or less students in a specific lab section. The breakdown of
time includes lab, meeting, preparation, etc.
2.3 Weekly meetings for instructors and mentors
A significant part of the CS490
course is the weekly meetings organized by the class instructor. These meetings
are key to having the mentors become an integral part of the teaching process.
The instructor will review the materials that require mentors to pay attention
to when marking the assignments. The mentors will discuss various methods used
in the draft solutions for the coming week assignment, and provide input into
the process of creating marking schemes for assignments. The focus is to
prepare the mentors to appreciate that they may encounter different legitimate
solutions to the problem in the assignments being submitted. The mentors can
also provide feedback received from their students to the course instructor and
to comment on the significance of this feedback. The mentors can exchange
opinions amongst themselves regarding problems arising during the mentoring
sessions.
2.4 Mentor's role during the lab period
Each mentor is responsible for
his/her own group of CS210 students. It
is the mentor's responsibility to be prepared to answer the student's questions
on a weekly basis.
A group of students between four
to nine is assigned to each mentor. Class assignments are generally completed
and submitted in the following way: CS210 students, upon completion of each
weekly assignment, email their assignments to mentors before a preset weekly
deadline. Upon receiving these assignments, each mentor must make the necessary
preparations before interactive marking with each student during the subsequent
lab period. Usually this preparation involves a review of each individually
assignment. It is crucial that the mentors have a firm understanding of the
assignment before they attempt to make interactive marking with the students.
It is important for a mentor to
actively communicate with each student during the marking process. By actively
communicating with the students, the mentors can gain valuable insight into
whether the students really understand the underlying problems and intended
learning associated with the assignment. The more the mentor understands the
problem, the easier it is to assess the student. This also reinforces the
mentors' understanding of their earlier course instruction.
In addition to marking student
assignments, each mentor has the task of delivering one or two lab lectures on
materials covered in one of the class assignments. This provides an opportunity
for mentors to experience and appreciate first-hand, exactly how much
preparation must go into each lecture.
2.5 Mentor's role outside of the lab
Each mentor must make preparation
outside the lab time. The requirements for the mentoring course indicate five
to six hours of preparation. Mentors are expected to establish a weekly meeting
with his or her group. These weekly meetings provide extra programming help and
additional support of the course material. Mentors found themselves providing
considerable support to students via email.
2.6 Marking for the Mentors (CS490)
Three aspects of the mentors
performance are assessed:
a) Professional conduct and attitude
b) Professional competence
c)
Comprehensive learning
3. Benefits of the Program
There are benefits to all parties
involved in the program. The following benefits are identified by the students
and the Computer Science Department.
Benefits to the CS210 students
include individual attention, less intimidating learning environment, exchange
of ideas of different approaches to solving problems, available help whenever
needed.
Benefits to the CS490 students
include an opportunity to develop teaching and organization skills, and gain
teaching experience, availability of a credit course that focuses on
non-technical skills, an opportunity to help themselves to enhance their own
programming knowledge and skills.
Benefits to the Computer Science
department include training ground for future student assistants for other
courses, improved learning environment, sparking interest in teaching computer
science as a career.
4. Students Survey Response to the Program
Surveys have been conducted of
the students who are involved in the program. To the question "Should the
Program Continue?" the responses have been very positive.
5. Philosophical Implications of the Program to Undergraduate Teaching
The mentoring program in the
University of Regina attempts to integrate the mentoring program into the
curriculum of the computer science education. In this program, some new
teaching philosophy is practiced in computer science courses. Knowledge is
jointly constructed and transformed by students and faculties. Students are not just a
6. Planning for Future Improvements
Although we have very positive
responses from the students who are involved with the program, there are things
to be improved. A more standardized mentor selection process and training
contents should be developed. We are also developing a quality control process
to make the interactive marking more consistent among mentors.
References:
[1] Reges, S., McGrory, J., and Smith, J. The Effective Use of Undergraduates to Staff Large Introductory CS Courses. SIGCSE Bulletin, February 1988.
[2] Roberts, E., Lilly, J., and Rollins, B. Using Undergraduates as Teaching Assistants in Introductory Programming Courses: An Update on the Stanford Experience. SIGCSE Bulletin, March 1995.