[-Ish-]

Kris and Lori were the instructors for this course. There was a 3 hr evening lecture every week, which was reduced to 2 hrs post-midterm. The lectures themselves were VERY informal.. more like a discussion amongst students and the instructors of how to improve as mentors and facilitate learning in first year students. You don't have to be an out-spoken person to do well in this course. I myself am an introvert and scored an A+ in the participation component of this course. Be an active listener, attend all lectures and contribute in some way or another.

Mark Break-down:

Learning Objectives - 20%
- 3 goals; what you want to gain/improve on from this course, how you plan on doing it and what evidence will support your achievement

Weekly Notes Integrating Lecture Discussions & Mentoring Sessions - 30%
- graded based on completion every week... and your responses having some sort of integration between lecture discussions, your practical experience mentoring the first years and articles given to read.
- 4 questions each week posted on Avenue as a 'quiz' that remains open for a 7-day period

In-class Participation - 10%

Mentoring Portfolio - 40%
This replaces the typical 'exam' for a course & is extremely time-consuming. You're given the logistics 2 weeks before the exam period, so DO get a head-start! The portfolio itself consists of a mentoring philosophy statement, your goals, evidences and how they relate to your goals and a final narrative analysis. There was no official page limit to the portfolio, but in putting everything together it was around 27 pages double spaced. BUT! like I said you had 2 weeks before exams to start and it was due 1&1/2 weeks into the exam period. The Goals and Philosophy statement were done during midterm period and peer-edited, so for the portfolio these only needed to be refined a little.

The grading scheme for all the assignments didn't go below a B+ lol so.. this is your 'bird' course in some way, but did require a good amount of effort in terms of written work. It's easy getting an 11 in the course, but frustrating because it was difficult getting that 12. There may have only been 1 to 2 students getting a 12, with majority getting 10s and 11s and a few 9s. You don't have to be an excellent writer to do well.. just be reflective and clear.

There are 3 tutorials during the week that you must attend, where you will be practicing mentoring with first year students. There are 3 mentors to one tutorial slot. Within the tutorial there are the 3 of you and 20 or so first year Science 1A03 students. There's also a TA that comes during the 3rd tutorial of the week, who is responsible for grading the first year students. Within the tutorials as a mentor you're free to assist students with the assignments given to them. As a mentor, you're very much like a TA, but will not be marking students, only facilitating students in completing their assignments. There are no marks associated to how you are mentoring, but coming to the tutorials is part of your responsibility and largely where you will be collecting evidence for your learning portfolio.

The course as a whole is very time consuming; you have the 3 hour lectures and 3 tutorials to attend in a week. That being said, I took this course along with 2 lab courses and still scored an 11. The course as a whole is also very rewarding and definitely improves on your communication, confidence and leadership skills. Everyone's really supportive and family-like, given the informal nature of this course. There's dates assigned for in-class peer reviews also, ensuring that you complete the work well beforehand and have it edited as well. There's no possible way you can go wrong with this course & Lori and Kris are always willing to help you do well.