Peer interaction enhances learning. The
Academic Learning Center is committed
to providing students opportunities to
learn and to become peer leaders through
tutoring, mentoring, and assisting faculty
and fellow students in the classroom as
well as assisting ALC professional staff.
Students can offer educational and informational services to their peers,
services designed "to assist in the adjustment, satisfaction, and persistence
of students toward attainment of their educational goals" (Ender and Newton
2), and they can do so effectively. Research tells us that through the
type of collaborative learning that occurs in peer teaching both the peer
assistant and the student benefit cognitively and affectively (Whitman
8). Moreover, peer assistance offered in counseling, advising, and in
other help situations can have a positive impact on students. Peer assistants
grow both academically and personally; their peers benefit from the assistants'
ability to relate to the student, from their energy and enthusiasm, and
from their personal experience. (Ender and Newton 6).
The ALC strives to provide such assistance programs and trains students
in the delivery of these services. The Center has developed and promoted
programs such as the CRLA certified Tutor Development
Program, the Preceptor Peer Assistance Program,
and the ALC Student Assistant Program. Informed training, standards, and
codes of conduct are in place to ensure quality programming and effectiveness.
Ender, Steven C., and Fred B. Newton. Students Helping
Students: A Guide for Peer Educators on College Campuses. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass, Inc., 2000.
Whitman, Neal A. Peer Teaching: To Teach is to Learn
Twice. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 4. Washington, D.C.:
Association for the Study of Higher Education, 1988.
