Lexington Books
Pages: 294
•
Trim: 6⅜ x 9¼
978-0-7391-7932-1 • Hardback • December 2012 • $136.00 • (£105.00)
978-0-7391-7933-8 • eBook • December 2012 • $129.00 • (£99.00)
Tania Smith is assistant professor of communications studies in the Department of Communication and Culture and has been involved in developing peer mentoring programs, hosting peer mentors, and teaching peer mentors across the University of Calgary since 2005. With a background in English literature, rhetoric and writing studies, she has studied innovative program and course development involving service-learning, mentoring and other forms of collaborative learning. She has co-authored with two senior peer mentors a textbook titled Curricular Peer Mentoring: A Handbook for Undergraduate Peer Mentors Serving and Learning in Courses (Trafford, 2009) and is author of a 2008 Innovative Higher Education article on the pilot year of the arts peer mentoring program.
Introduction: The History and Scope of Curricular Peer Mentoring Programs
Tania S. Smith
Chapter 1: Defining Features of Curricular Peer Mentoring Programs
Tania S. Smith
Chapter 2: Discipline-Focused Peer Mentoring: Peer Teaching in Biology at the University of British Columbia
Carol Pollock
Theory and Practice: Lave and Wenger on Communities of Practice
Tania S. Smith
Chapter 3: Peer Mentoring in a Team-Taught Interdisciplinary Course: Engaging the 21st Century Student Through Peer-Led Learning
Tina Pugliese, Tamsin Bolton, Veronika Mogyorody, Jill Singleton-Jackson, Robert Nelson & Ralph H. Johnson
Theory and Practice: Student Engagement
Tania S. Smith
Chapter 4: Peer Mentoring in Large-scale First-year Programs: Academic Peer Mentors in First-year Courses at the University of Texas at Austin
Jennifer L. Smith
Theory and Practice: Tinto and Wenger on Learning Communities
Tania S. Smith
Chapter 5: Peer Mentoring in a Technical Institution: Undergraduate Mentoring in Software Engineering
Sanjay Goel
Theory and Practice: Vygotsky’s and Bloom’s Theories
Tania S. Smith
Chapter 6: Hosting Peer Mentors in a Senior Interdisciplinary Course: Notes from a Pre-History of Peer Mentoring at the University of Calgary
Marcia Jenneth Epstein
Theory and Practice: Bruffee on Collaborative Learning
Tania S. Smith
Chapter 7: Supporting Peer Mentors: Recruiting, Educating and Rewarding Peer Mentors
Kate Zier-Vogel and Andrew Barry
Theory and Practice: Peer Mentor Education Through Service-Learning
Tania S. Smith
Chapter 8: Case Studies of Conflict and Collaboration: Supporting Teaching Assistants Who Work with Peer Mentors
Bryanne Young
Theory and Practice: Teaching Teams with Graduate and Undergraduate Assistants
Tania S. Smith
Conclusion: Program Development and Sustainability
Tania S. Smith
Tania Smith’s volume, Undergraduate Curricular Peer Mentoring Programs, situates the heretofore practice-oriented peer instruction literature within a well-researched theoretical framework. It will be a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners.
— Judy Miller, University of North Florida
This book presents a sweeping, coherent overview of the many types of curricular peer mentoring practices, both institutionalized programs and unique, unaffiliated efforts, that have demonstrated their potential to improve student learning outcomes within standard post-secondary curricula. The authors commendably avoid selecting a best model in favor of emphasizing that the concept’s underlying principles and guidelines permit great flexibility when applied to different disciplines, course structures, and types of participants. The authors also deal effectively with the proliferation of definitions, labels, and education jargon that can confuse and intimidate an outsider looking just for a few good ideas to get started with peer mentoring. In particular, their decision to intersperse descriptions of specific programs with succinct summaries of education research is a nice touch. The last chapter can be used as a very practical "how to" guide for educators setting up the framework of a new peer mentoring program or reviewing the operation of an existing one. In summary, in may ways this book is the educational equivalent to Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking: comprehensive, authoritative, a rich resource to be kept within arm’s reach by educators who want to enhance learning outcomes with the best ingredients available – students themselves.
— Hal A. Larson, University of Arizona