Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) Groups

Greegings. As promised last week, a wide variety of information links are now active along the upper right hand corner of this page. These web links all are related to peer assisted learnikng in some way. The names of them are:

1. Arendale Web Page. Visiting my personal web page also provides access to a variety of publications and resources related to peer assisted learning. Click on the menu on the left side of that web page to access resources for peer learning, developmental education, student retention, among others.
2. PAL Bibliography. This is an annotated bibliography of every known publication related to the major peer assisted learning programs in postsecondary education.
3. Facilitator Toolkit. This is one of the training materials used here at the University of Minnesota for training our peer learning facilitators.
4. Online Publications. This is a list of more than 100 publications available on-line about peer learning. All of these are included in the annotated bibliography mentioned earlier in this list.
5. Online PP Shows. These Power Point presentations are available online and relate in some way to peer assisted learning programs at other colleges across the U.S.
6. Free Online Materials. This is a collection of training materials and video clips developed by other postsecondary institutions in the U.S. for their peer learning programs.
7. Purchase Materials. Several colleges and organizations sell training materials for peer learning programs.
8. PAL Workshops. This page describers several fee-based training workshops for peer learning that are conducted by national programs that have developed model approaches.
9. Must Read Books. This collection of books are favorites of mine that relate to peer learning.
10. Journals. While most of these journals do not focus exclusively upon peer learning, they often publish artciles related to the field.
11. Organizations. Some of these organizations focus on peer learning. Others host special interest groups and feature conference presentations on the topic.
12. Certifications. There are a wide variety of organizations that are offering certification programs for peer learnign programs.
13. Research Centers. This page features several national research centers that conduct research and publish materials related to peer learning among other topics.
14. Facilitator Listserv. The listserv was developed exclusively for use by student paraprofessionals who work in peer learning programs.
15. Administrator Listserv. SInet is the official email listserv supporting Supplemental Instruction programs. However, the discussion is diverse enough that college administrators that manage similar programs would find the conversations useful.

In the near future an additional feature of this blog page will be posting interviews with student paraprofessionals who are serving as facilitators of peer assisted learnign programs. Watch for upcoming announcements. For now, enjoy the information links at the right hand side of the page.

Take care,
David Arendale

Posted by David Arendale at 8:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Greetings. It was good to meet many of you at the MnSCU Tutoring Summit meeting at North Hennepin Community College the other day. This web site will provide links to a variety of resources that you might find helpful if you are managing peer assisted learning programs. I formerly directed the National Center for Supplemental Instruction at the Unviersity of Misouri-Kansas City before I accepted a teaching position at the Unviersity of Minnesota. Within the next week or so I will be adding a variety of resources that you may find useful: (1) more than 100 on-line articles or research studies about peer learning programs such as SI; (2) training manuals for peer learning programs at other insitutions; © and lots of other resources related to this area.

Watch for new web links to appear in the upper right-hand column in the next week. Clicking on these web links will take you to some helpful resources for this field. I will highlight some of them over the next month or so through blog postings to this web site.

Take care,
David Arendale

Posted by David Arendale at 4:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am glad that you have decided to visit this blog page. This web site is for people to facilitate study review groups for other students. It will have a variety of resources. Look at the web links along the right side of this page for some of these resources. Come back and visit often as new material will be posted both by me and others who are interested in peer assisted learning.

An esciting feature will be a bi-weekly podcast show made up of interviews with study group leaders who share their favorite activities and stories of helping other students to earn higher grades in their classes. Watch for announcements about this activity and how to sign up for it.

Posted by David Arendale at 7:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)