BUDDY, SMK Gemilang, Penang

Summary of Project:

BUDDY is a Peer Mentoring Club that aims to connect individuals to overcome the negative effects of learning loss. The goal of this mentorship program is to accelerate the personal and professional development of the mentees. This can be achieved by providing mentees guidance, advice, and feedback on their school work. This is in hopes to help them do better in their studies.

Problem Statement:

Many students had less than ideal virtual learning experiences during the first two years of the pandemic. Internet issues are one of the many challenges Malaysian students face faced as a result of the periodic lockdown that has afflicted the country.

When we discovered that most of the students we spoke to had similar concerns, our desire for change was sparked. Thus, with the help of our teachers, we established a club, named BUDDY, within the school that provides students with mentoring relationships.

This project aims to motivate students to discover their preferred method of learning in addition to helping them catch up with their studies.

Participants Demographics:

Students in Forms 4 and Form 5 who study Biology and other Science-related subjects made up our participants. There were a total of 8 mentees. They engaged with us greatly, and the majority of them were active learners.

Project Impact & Impact Measurement Method:

Before the mentoring sessions began, we asked them a series of questions to gauge their level of understanding, and we also asked them similar questions during the final sessions to gauge their improvement.

Additionally, we kept tabs on their performance and level of confidence throughout our sessions to monitor their growth. In order to truly track their progress in Biology, we also kept tabs on their exam results.

The accuracy of our participants' answers have increased from 40% to 81%. Besides the 41% improvement, one of them also managed to get an A- in the most recent exam, as compared to a C+ in the last exam!

Changes Observed In Participants (Improvements/Progress):

As our project progressed, the response that we had gotten was beyond our expectation! We had gotten great responses from both our juniors and friends.

They were interested to join our club after they saw the posters we distributed and after we explained to them what our club is about.

This was one of our achievements and we welcomed all of them. During all the sessions we carried out, we observed a lot of changes in our mentees. It was a pleasant surprise for us when one of our mentees got an A in her Science exam and we were so proud of her! Of course, we were also proud of ourselves and our project because we contributed to her journey.

We did notice that our mentees were better at taking notes after using methods that we taught them. Also, their notes all look pretty and you will get excited to read it again and again without getting bored.

Another achievement that we had was that they have improved in Science and Biology for some subtopics. We realized this when we did quizzes during the first sessions and their marks were quite low, but after we taught and explained to them in the next session, they were able to score higher. The difference between their scores during the first session and the final one is significant, so basically it is accurate to say that they have improved a lot.

Last but not least, our mentees actually enjoy joining our club. They gave us lot of positive feedback, and what made us feel accomplished was that they said that they want this club to continue and do not want it to end. This does make us feel happy and relieved that they were pleased with our club!

Challenges/Setbacks Faced:

Every time we open the door to the classroom where we hold our sessions, we have to take a deep breath because we were anxious as we wait for our mentees. We feared that no one will show up for our sessions.

We continued to strive to prevent letting our thoughts get in the way of our actions by being open and honest with our team members about how we are feeling.

As a result, we were able to view our situation rationally. Due to our fear of failure, it can be easy to think small, but we know that in order to achieve big things in life, we must be prepared to take risks. We reminded ourselves to always have the big picture in mind when facing obstacles. That way, we will achieve more than we could have ever imagined.

Furthermore, the SPM trial and tuition were further setbacks for us. We fear that juggling all of these at once will be too much for us.

We know that one of the most important aspects in overcoming obstacles is acting on it. It is likely that a significant portion of whatever you are dealing with is difficult for you because of an underlying concern.

To overcome our challenge of overwhelming responsibilities, we defined and specified our aim and worked more strategically. We also tried to identify and describe our fears of the circumstance. Having a plan really helped to make our process easier.