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PAL Central: First Session

An online hub of guidance and resources for our PAL Leaders and their Level 4 students.

Your first PAL session is important for making an impact on your students in order to encourage them to come back and regularly attend your session. As they say, first impressions count! Your first session is also important for setting expectations with your group. Below you can find a list of things that you need to do within your first PAL session.

Tips

  • We do recognise that using other platforms may help boost engagement, so do use tools such as a closed social media group, MS Teams or an email group if you would benefit! Students can then join them in your first session. Make sure this is inclusive and follow up with an email from your university account with what you have posted on any groups. Share this with your students and encourage them to contribute ideas and comments weekly. This should help you create PAL sessions based on the student's needs

  • Be clear about your students expectations of PAL and what they can expect from you as a PAL Leader. Explain what PAL is and its purpose - that it is there to support your students' learning. Emphasise you are there to facilitate and not teach! 

  • Collectively agree ground rules with your students such as being respectful of each other – revisit these in later sessions if disruption occurs

  • Get to know your students – use icebreakers and name labels in your first few sessions to familiarise yourself with your students and learn their names to give a more personal experience

Introduce Yourself and Campus Tour

As you will know yourself, as exciting as starting university is, it can also be quite daunting for some! Students often start university with a lot of concerns over their new surroundings and lifestyle.

Welcome freshers by sharing your experiences – why not create a short video with other PAL Leaders about your first year at BU? Or use PowerPoint to create a slideshow with photos and share your experiences about the course and uni life?

Giving tours around the campus are an excellent way to spend time with your students in a non-classroom environment, while also showing them around the university and their new surroundings.

You can be as imaginative as you like with this.

A normal campus tour is fine, but make sure you add your own tips and recommendations. For example, tell them the best place to get coffee, or the quietest time to use the gym, or take them on a sustainability tour to highlight what we do on our campuses to be more sustainable.

Take a selfie game! Set students off in groups on a hunt for different spots around the university, but they have to prove they have been there by taking a selfie in that spot. The fastest team to get a selfie in every spot win a prize.

Send groups of students to certain areas of the university to find out more about that area (such as Careers, the Library Help Desk, SUBU or AskBU) and get them to feedback what they found out to the group.

Have a look through the checklist below!

Download First Session Checklist Here