Geared for success

Being a mentor as well as a peer is a difficult balancing act to master. However, Bachelor of Engineering and Biotechnology student Albert Ong takes the challenge in his stride.  

Currently in his seventh year majoring in Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, Ong has juggled his own learning with a number of mentoring positions throughout his university career.

This has included his role as a U:PASS (UTS Peer Assisted Study Success) leader for four years, being IT Director for a student club (the UTS Australian Collaborative Entrepreneurial Society) and work as a laboratory demonstrator for the subject Physical Modelling in the Facult of Science.

"The high degree of flexibility UTS provides in student timetabling has allowed me to easily manage my range of commitments,” says Ong. “It will even allow me to find the time to take on future opportunities!" 

An advocate for collaborative learning, Ong encourages teamwork within his lab classes. After grouping his students into teams of three, he moves between each group as they solve theoretical physics problems together.

“I get my students to bounce ideas between themselves to encourage collaborative learning so they are open to multiple opinions. This challenges their own ways of thinking.”

Ong believes this approach also helps students feel more comfortable asking questions to make sure they understand the topic.

He says, “In lectures, students struggle to ask questions – they find it daunting in a room with 400 other students”.

Within smaller, more intimate environments such as the U:PASS sessions Ong conducts, students feel less exposed to judgement when they ask for help.

The U:PASS program helps students with subjects that have been identified as particularly difficult to understand or pass. U:PASS group study sessions are facilitated by trained Peer Leaders - high-achieving UTS students who have recently completed the subject.

“U:PASS consolidates what’s in the lectures and helps people understand it using their own methods of learning and remembering,” says Ong.

Research conducted by the U:PASS team over the past 12 semesters shows regular U:PASS attendees have seen a substantial increase in their course results, gaining on average, 14 to 15 per cent higher marks than other students in the same subjects.

As a mentor and a teacher, Ong is always readily available for his students if they need assistance inside or outside the classroom. He gives them feedback on their work and helps them understand the information their lecturers give them.

“I try to promote a self-discovery approach to solutions rather than spoon-feeding my students the answers,” says Ong. He believes UTS’s collaborative and informal learning spaces, such as ‘the Sandpit’ in Haymarket, also support this style of active learning. “The layout encourages discussion and allows students to learn from each other.”

Ong says peer learning helps students remember information much better when they go into exams. “And it cuts down the study time they need to do.”

His teaching has also had unexpected benefits for his own study, helping incorporate new perspectives into his learning.

“Working and studying at UTS has not only widened my career paths for the future, but has also offered me a unique environment in which I always learn something new each day.”