Peer learning: Help your students pass with PASS!

Training sessions for new PASS Leaders is coming up – February 2021

PASS – Peer Assisted Study Sessions – is a form of peer learning, where senior students, PASS leaders, support or facilitate learning in groups, or one-to-one in class. It involves revising and discussing course work, promoting deeper understanding and learning of subject concepts, and motivating students to be independent learners.

This semester we had 16 PASS Leaders assigned to 37 courses, and they facilitated 45 PASS sessions face-to-face and online.

We have training for PASS Leaders in the new year so please encourage students who meet the criteria, outlined below, to participate.

 Criteria for PASS Leaders:

A PASS leader (far right) engaging with Civil Engineering students in the concrete lab, B114

• Achieve B+ or higher grade in a course the School wants to run PASS in
• Have excellent time management and organisational skills
• Have excellent interpersonal skills
• Able to demonstrate cultural sensitivity with students from diverse backgrounds

Upcoming training dates for new PASS leaders:

When: 24 and 25 February 2021
Where: Building 180-2043, Mt Albert campus

Feedback from students who have benefited from having PASS leaders in their classes:

• “Being able to ask any question and knowing that you will be assisted one way or another”
• “Always goes the extra mile to help with the problems when I got stuck”
• “Happy to help with solving problems”
• “Because of the group activities it is easy to learn”
• “Discussing issues in depth that are not understood in class”
• “The leader’s ability to connect with peers, down-to-earth learning, easy, small groups to work with…”
• “The opportunity to discuss and hear different ideas, and look at things from different perspectives”
• “Helpful, clear understanding of the topic related to course”
• “Approachable and helpful person therefore improved my learning”

PASS Leaders celebrate the completion of their training

Feedback from PASS leaders:

• “I have improved my communication skills and ability to think on my feet and solve or help solving study related issues”
• “I enjoyed making tests and puzzles, and felt very proud of the students when I did see their development and excellent results”
• “Confidence in myself. Creating more empathy and understanding with the students, thus leading to friendship. The fulfillment that I’ve helped someone no matter how many or how small I’ve helped”
• “Time management improved by organising lessons and running classes on time so as not to disappoint my students coming in unprepared”

Feedback from lecturers:

• “I found the PASS support great. We tend to attract the top students to these positions, which provides us with good quality support in the classroom. PASS students connect on a positive level with existing students. The good PASS Leaders hopefully hang around and become Tutorial Assistants, who are even more useful in the support they can provide to teaching staff” – Lecturer from Architectural Technology
• “PASS leaders gives students individual attention that they don’t always get in a busy classroom. PASS also revises and strengthens certain topics with students” – Lecturer from Electrical Engineering
• “PASS leaders are very keen to help students. Offer to help in other ways, e.g. making videos” – Lecturer from Electrical and Electronics Engineering
• “The two main benefits of PASS are that it provides support for the tutor especially with classes of more than 24 students and provides an extra avenue of resource for the students, in particular those who are late in enrolling or who have missed classes through illness” – Lecturer from Computing and Information Technology

Got a question?

For further information, please contact the PASS Coordinators:

• Cindy Wee – Learning Development Lecturer
• Margi Grey – Learning Development Lecturer