Challenge

Our campus organization for Electronics Engineers (ECE) strives for academic assistance for the

students. As one of the key officers, we organize events that will help students gain additional knowledge  that they might not be able to learn during lectures and also assist them in the courses they are currently  taking. And being a student myself, we are attracted and constantly looking for things and events that are  interesting-at-first-sight. Not only that, we are also looking for such things that can maintain its interesting  side until the end of the program. Traditional knowledge-sharing events (i.e. seminars) can be interesting but  not catchy to some. With this, to provide creative solutions to aid our fellow Electronics Engineering students  with their academic studies became a part of our organization’s agenda.

In our institution, the culture of seeking help from senior students had developed and somewhat

improved the students’ performance, especially if the seniors that they asked helped from are close to them.  This also became one of the organization’s agenda, to unite the members comprising from seniors to  freshmen.

Selection

The key officers, though informally, chose the Learning Launch tool to see if the ideas they developed

are effective. Before using the tool, the team brainstormed for ideas on the problem on how to assist students  in their major academic courses (Mathematics, Electronics, General Sciences, etc.) all the while introducing  them to the seniors. Learning Launch was used so that different ideas could be experimented on the group  of students interested in taking part of the launching of our ideas.

Application

During the brainstorming, it was brought up that peer mentoring has shown its effectiveness to some

students. It was brought up that students learn more when they are comfortable around the instructor. Some  factors that increases comfort of the student to the instructor are: the age gap, enthusiasm of the instructor,  and his friendliness. And around that time, the culture of the juniors asking assistance from seniors were  already around but not prevalent. Thus, for the first school year implementation of Learning Launch, groups  were assembled in which each group comprises of at least 2 seniors and 4 lower classmen. Each group has  to log the date and time of the peer mentoring session but it was up to the group members of how they will  reach out to each other and manage the topics that they can tackle. During this first implementation, I was a  participant since I wasn’t one of the key officers yet. But at that time, I could say that it was ineffective due to  the seniors’ unresponsiveness, the conflict of schedules, and lack of monitoring from the organizing team.

The following year, it was decided to accommodate as many lower classmen as it takes. There were

brainstorming sessions again regarding the flow of the program. It was then decided that the students or  interested participants will be grouped according to their year level. The mentoring sessions and the courses  to be tackled or reviewed will be according to the responses of the participants. The seniors were the tutors  and were given the courses that they will review to the students. All sessions of all groups were done in a  single day, courses having a limited time for review. The three groups – 1st, 2nd and 3rd years – had their  sessions in parallel. At a certain time period, three different seniors are teaching 3 different courses, each for  the respective groups. And for the next time slot, these tutors will either exchange or be replaced. At this

point, I think the effectiveness was reduced since the ratio of a senior to lower classmen in a group was  around 1:20. Though the purpose of peer mentoring and getting to know the seniors are still present.

Insight

The assigned tool could be effective if implemented properly. For me, this tool helps prove ideas and

experiments that the methods were effective. But along with the implementation of this tool, there must be a  strict time management for the experimentation processes, great planning before execution of experiments,  and effective manpower management.

From the activity and from the lessons, I realized and learned the importance of your subject’s needs.

These needs can help generate ideas that can be used to develop interesting and effective experimentations.  We wanted our activities to be enticing and helpful to the students.

Approach

I think the Learning Launch best fits this kind of projects of the organization. But perhaps if combined

with the ethnographic tool that can aid us in dwelling deeper in the students’ specific needs, we can develop  better ideas for experimentation. Our Learning Launch relied on our experiences as ordinary students and  limited responses from others. We can up our game if we get to know the students on a personal level and  generate helpful ideas.

