Elaine Dockery
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In October 2006, I applied to work as an Undergraduate Mentor with On Track; I had heard about the organisation through a recruitment poster in the Social Sciences Faculty of Glasgow University and then again when I met project staff after speaking with Access students from James Watt College about university life. The interview and training days gave me several insights into On Track; the presentations not only developed our skills as educators and learners but also gave us the opportunity to meet the other Mentors and Tutors in a supportive atmosphere. This summed up the essence of On Track: facilitating the process of exchange of skills and experience between groups of people, with the aim of encouraging students from college to successfully and confidently negotiate the transfer to university and become independent learners. So, after having completed my training, I was assigned as Mentor to a group of mature students from South Lanarkshire College in East Kilbride. I already knew the Postgraduate Tutor I was assigned to work with, since we both worked as assistants in the Student Information Points at Glasgow University. We had five 2-hour teaching sessions on Thursday afternoons with our group and the challenge was to cover the On Track syllabus in these 10 hours as well as including our own experience of university. Each week, my co-tutor and I met up beforehand to prepare the material and allocate tasks. For once, being a compulsive hoarder turned into a distinct advantage; I had collected masses of sociology, anthropology and archaeology course handbooks, lecture notes that I just couldn't bear to throw away (handwritten and typed), old textbooks, essays and reports from my last five years at university. These provided invaluable firsthand sources to illustrate the various points we were discussing as well as enabling me to do a quick bit of multi-tasking by removing the thick layer of dust! We were more or less faithfully followed the On Track manual sequence, with a 15 minute coffee break to allow students to make the considerable journey to the canteen; this usually turned into an opportunity for an informal chat. Although our class usually numbered about 12, seated at two big tables on either side of the classroom, we managed to exploit this seating arrangement to advantage when we improvised a debate on gambling as part of the Critical Thinking workshop in Session Two. As Glasgow had lost out to Manchester for the new super-casino the day before, we had our two groups discussing the pro and anti-gambling arguments, followed by an enthusiastic and riotous debate. Since this had been a topical item on television and radio news, everyone was keen to participate, offering varied opinions but not necessarily as anticipated! Luckily, no-one came to blows (at least not in the classroom) and it was certainly a method I’d use in the future. |
