From our Student Mentors

As they come to the end of their stint as digital skills mentors, Holly and Sarah offer some reflections on their roles within the classroom:

Holly:

My Role as a Digital Skills Mentor
I have enjoyed my role as a digital skills mentor because I have been able to help students with their work for this year. Having experience in the module already really helped to do this. Through taking on this role as a digital skills mentor, I have gained more confidence through my communication skills. Having to talk to and listen to students, who I have never met before, has helped me in being able to be more confident when talking to people. I have seen this myself from taking part in more discussions in my own seminars. This role has also given me an insight in to the university and what they are trying to achieve with students digitally. This has boosted my team work skills by having to work with another digital skills mentor and many members of staff to achieve this.

From observing a lot of seminars across two terms, I found that the sessions in the first term were more interactive for the students. This is because they had to complete tasks and also had time allocated to complete the assessment. Sometimes the tasks they were carrying out were maybe a bit too simple and the students acted as if they knew how to do these tasks already, for example learning how to use Google to search for particular things.

Sarah:
What has it been like to be a Digital Skills Mentor this year?
I have really enjoyed my year as being a digital skills mentor as I have gained a new experience on what it is like to be a mentor/observer and has given me new skills that I can improve on in the future. I have improved on my communication skills, it has given me more confidence from having to work in groups or walk up to groups and ask them questions on my own. It has also enhanced my partnership working as I often worked with Holly (my co-digital skills mentor) and with other members of staff. One of my favourite parts of being a digital skills mentor was helping the first years with any issues they had in class or any questions they had about set assignments. To me, I was more than just a digital skills mentor but also a general health and social care mentor as I got to give students tips on what to do in first year and second year and talk to them about student life. I have also become familiar with first year health and social care as when walking around the campus I will say hello.

What activities and task have I been asked to do?
The main activities and task I was asked to do when working in teaching sessions with Jane was writing down any observations about the sessions. Some of these observations included student’s thoughts on the module, any difficulties they were having with technology, tasks they were set, how the sessions were structured and what software and programmes they were using. We were also, asked to play a ‘teaching assistant role’ and walk around the tables to see if any of the students needed any help. The majority of the questions were how to do certain things on programmes or laptops, where to find things on NOW or if they were unsure about the task set and needed a clearer explanation. Another duty Holly and I were asked to take part in, was to film a video interview with a group of about 10 students to ask them questions to do with their general computer skills, anything that has surprised them about the course, anything they have learned from the module to help with their computer use, anything that was missing from the module and whether their confidence has grown with technology since being on the course.