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A Q&A with Dr Chelsea Avard and Oliwia Derda

Dr Chelsea Avard was awarded a 2018 LEI Grant for her application titled: 鈥淧ASS (Peer Assisted Study Sessions) Online Pilot Program鈥�.

The LEI grant project was to trial an online delivery of the Peer Assisted Study Sessions (PASS). The original PASS model has been delivered successfully in a face-to-face format and is primarily aimed at assisting first year coursework students in their transition into University. The benefits of the face-to-face PASS program have already been proven but Dr Chelsea Avard wanted to pilot an online version of the program to test its viability and effectiveness.

One of the main reasons for trialling an online delivery was to make the program accessible to a wider cohort of students who were unable to attend face-to-face sessions. There was also a focus on students transitioning from the North Terrace campus to the Waite campus, which has been known to be a tough transition for students.

The PASS online pilot program was delivered through the Echo360 platform and rolled out to support Faculty of Science students in the first-year course STATS 1004 Statistical Practices I (Life Sciences). This particular course is taught on the North Terrace campus. Students who take this course typically go on to study at the Waite campus in their second year. The reason for selecting this course in the PASS online pilot program was to assist in creating a seamless transition for students from campus to campus.

We spoke to Academic PASS Coordinator, Dr Chelsea Avard 听and student PASS Leader, Oliwia Derda on their involvement in the project, their findings, and how this project has evolved.

What was your main motivation for wanting to get involved in the project?

Academic Voice, Dr Chelsea Avard:
I took over as PASS Coordinator at the beginning of 2018, and the previous coordinator had left a note in 2017鈥檚 annual report recommendations听to look into running PASS online. I had been thinking of ways to investigate the possibilities for this but was working with a very tight budget. In the meantime, I had become involved with a steering committee, whose focus was on supporting the university鈥檚 Peer Leaders, and through that committee met an academic from Waite who was looking for ways to help connect new students to continuing students. How to connect Waite to the PASS program was another issue I had been investigating, so when the LEI grants came up it seemed like a perfect fit to give us both financial and tech support to develop a pilot project to test the possibilities for running PASS online, in a way that would, in this case, enable senior students based at Waite the chance to be PASS Leaders, and connect the 2018 first year cohort (who would be based mainly at Waite in 2019) to their future campus.

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What was your role in the project?

Academic Voice, Dr Chelsea Avard:
As PASS Coordinator, my role focussed on identifying senior students in the Viticulture and Oenology degree based at Waite who would be good candidates for PASS Leadership, and training them in the facilitation of PASS, organising extra training for them to support them in using Echo360 and other online technologies, and assessing how the program was going across the semester.

Student Voice, Oliwia Derda:
During our pilot PASS project I was in charge of the content delivery for the students, as a designated PASS Leader. I liaised with the course coordinator and the students to prepare activates and tasks that helped the students get more out of their course.

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What was the most surprising outcome/discovery from the PASS pilot program?

Academic Voice, Dr Chelsea Avard:
The most surprising aspect for me was that some students would log on to the session externally, and remain connected throughout the hour but without contributing to the discussion. This is something that will need to be addressed when we run our second pilot in Semester Two 2019. The other thing that surprised me was how well the PASS Leaders and those attending students who did participate in the discussion were able to form a productive relationship, of the kind that forms between PASS Leaders who facilitate in-person sessions and their attending groups of students.

Student Voice, Oliwia Derda:
It was a first time for the PASS program at 911爆料网 Uni to run sessions online. Therefore, before the start of the program I was concerned over not being able to establish a connection between the PASS leaders and students. However, wh