This paper presents findings from a 2010 evaluation of Victoria University's Student Rover program, an on-campus work-based learning program in which mobile student mentors are employed and deployed within the university's Learning Commons to provide 'just-in-time' and 'just-in-place' learning support to other students. Student Rovers are paid not to perform a quasi-staff role, but to be students who help other students learn and, in this process, to model both learning to learn and collaborative learning behaviours. Drawing on specific findings from a large-scale student survey, a small-scale staff survey and focus groups conducted with Student Rovers themselves relating to perceptions of the socio-institutional status of Student Rovers, the paper is concerned with exploring the anomalous nature of the Student Rover role and speculating as to the potential for change inherent within this situation. Reworking Billett's conceptualisation of co-participatory workplace practices, we propose that by framing the work of Student Rovers as 'learningful' workers operating within the liminal institutional contact zone between staff and students, the program may prove to be not simply a successful strategy for helping new students engage in campus life -while simultaneously preparing Student Rovers themselves for negotiating contemporary organisational circumstances of change, complexity and contingency -but also a precursor to an emergent, institutionally recognised, educational role of students paid to support the learning of other students.
IntroductionThe Victoria University (VU) Student Rover program is an on-campus workplacelearning program in which mobile peer mentors are employed to provide 'just-intime' and 'just-in-place' learning support to other students within the university's Learning Commons. As part of the broader shift in higher education 'away from a teaching culture and towards a culture of learning' (Bennett, 2005, p. 10), many academic libraries have been progressively reframed firstly as 'information commons' and later 'Learning Commons'. One of the key elements in this second transitionfrom information to learning commons -has been an increasing focus on learners and learning rather than simply the successful provision of information or resources. This shift has also occurred in line with a global trend aimed at repositioning university libraries in an era of ubiquitous access to online information and materials, so that they
A scaffolded learning and embedded skills educational framework was adopted by an intersectoral university teaching team for the foundational nursing course unit of study: "Frameworks for Nursing Practice." The scaffolded learning and embedded skills approach is espoused as recognising the unique learning needs of students who are transitioning to higher education studies from a variety of entry points (
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