Dear Marcia and other #loveLD folks,

I am a third year (Jan starter) PhD student at Manchester (full time), and a learning developer at Leeds (now part time, previously FT, ). I've struggled with writing (and still do!). After taking part in #AcWriMo last year, I started a writing group in the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures which also recruited members from education. We've met 14 times face to face and many times on Skype for peer motivated writing based around the Pomodoro technique. I blogged about it here originally, http://lucubrat.wordpress.com/2013/12/02/shut-up-and-write/, and most recently last week http://lucubrat.wordpress.com/2014/10/16/hums/ as several of our members have recently submitted and we need to recruit new folks (though at least one of them is planning to continue to join us to keep up with her writing). This is what a fellow student wrote about our first session: http://sucorcoran.wordpress.com/2013/12/07/shut-up-and-write/. Although writing is at the core of the sessions, the discussions we have in between writing have been a tremendous source of support for many different aspects of the PhD process.

I have since (in my LD role) run a couple of similar 'Shut up and Write!' sessions at Leeds, mostly for Masters students. The first two were run as one-off events, with participants being encouraged to exchange email/facebook details at the end if they wanted to continue to run independently (I'm not sure whether they did). Feedback was extremely positive. I think it's the declared goals and shared tips/encouragement which helps. I am attaching the handout which I use for these sessions, which are based on the format which evolved through our sessions in Manchester.

I am running a 'Shut up and Write!' on campus tomorrow, we have couple of attendees so far and I have opened the group to all HUMS researchers. 

I'd be happy to come and have a chat with you if you'd like to know more, contact me via [log in to unmask] as I only check this list once a week. I also took part in the excellent two day writing retreat run by Ian Pople at Manchester ( http://www.ulc.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/staff/ianpople/) he would be another good person to talk to about peer writing support.

Teaching and learning in a community of practice is also at the core of my PhD research, and although it's in a very different environment, there are definitely aspects which could be incorporated into a peer/neer peer mentoring scheme. There's more info on my blog, but of course, I need to write more about this...!  

Kind regards

Anna

PLEASE NOTE: I work one day a week for Skills@Library, my usual working day is Monday. If you have any urgent enquires, please contact Skills@Library: http://library.leeds.ac.uk/skills-contact

Anna Seabourne
Skills Adviser
Skills@Library
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-----Original Message-----
From: learning development in higher education network [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Marcia Ody
Sent: 16 October 2014 23:21
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Peer Support for PhD students

Hi,

Oli - Would you be willing to share your training materials?

There has been a fair amount of interest from colleagues so if anybody has any resources that they are willing to share please do send them directly to me and I will happily compile them and share them back with the list.

Best wishes,
Marcia

Marcia Ody

Sent from my iPad

> On 16 Oct 2014, at 09:38, "Oliver Schofield" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> Hi Marcia,
> 
> We also are looking into this model. We piloted a "formal" scheme this year in Engineering and Design. I met with the mentors and in the training we looked at: the role of a mentor, types of support that PGR students may need, how to run group meetings, and did a bit on signposting sources of support.
> 
> I'd also be interested to hear of others doing this work.
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> Oli
> 
>> On 15/10/2014 15:49, Marcia Ody wrote:
>> Hi All,
>> 
>> I have met with some colleagues here at the University of Manchester 
>> who are very keen to implement a formalised Peer Mentoring scheme for 
>> their PhD students. Whilst we have a lot of experience of Peer 
>> Support for UG students and some informal mentoring for PG students 
>> which we can draw from I wondered whether anyone was running 
>> Mentoring for new PhDs and if so what you include in your training?
>> 
>> Best Wishes,
>> 
>> Marcia
>> 
>> *Marcia Ody* l Teaching and Learning Manager  l  Teaching and 
>> Learning Support Office  l  Directorate for the Student Experience l  
>> John Owens Building  l  The University of Manchester  l  Oxford Road  
>> l Manchester, M13 9PL  l
>> 
>> Tel +44 (0) 161 275 3254 l  Fax +44 (0) 161 275 7354  l 
>> www.manchester.ac.uk <http://www.manchester.ac.uk/>
>> 
>> PLEASE NOTE: I work part time and I am not normally in the office on 
>> a Thursday and Friday.
> 
> --
> Oliver Schofield | Peer Support Coordinator
> 
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