Title: Utilizing Peer Mentoring as Intervention Strategy to Improve Practical Skills of SMAW Students

Context and Rationale:

Taysan Senior High School is the only stand-alone school in Taysan district. It offers STEM,
ABM, Home Economics and Industrial Arts strand. Under the Industrial Arts strand is the Shielded
Metal Arc Welding NCI and NC II. The school has 2 in thus specialization.

Shielded Metal Arc Welding is one of the different processes of welding. It is informally
called as stick welding. It is a manual arc welding process that uses a consumable electrode covered
with a flux to lay the weld. This process is used in small scale welding shops that repairs tricycles,
jeeps and used in making pig caging. These are the following business of the residents from Taysan
and Rosario.

During the first year of the researcher in teaching SMAW course, she had a hard time
because some of the students do not have knowledge about welding. Some students just enrolled
because they were influenced by friends, they don’t know what they really want or they know
someone who has welding shop. During that time the school also has limited tools and equipment.
There’s no Industrial arts area where the students can perform welding in different positions.

The researcher experienced a hard time in teaching especially to students who do not have
experienced in welding. At first, the researcher tried the one on one teaching. But there are
advantages and disadvantages in teaching one on one. This method takes time in teaching. The
researcher is thinking about the different strategy that she can use to improve her
teaching/facilitating learners.

It is said that the most cost efficient and sustainable method of fostering the talent
within an organization is thru mentoring. Knowledge and experiences can be handed down with the
use of mentoring. There are lots of benefits in a mentoring programme where the learners and
mentors both achieve their goals. There are also different models of mentoring according to
Clutterback (2014)

Peer mentoring is regarded as effective intervention the helps the students to be successful.
There are many schools and universities that implemented some mentoring program as a support
for the students. There are some researches that supports of using peer mentoring for the
improvement of the students learning process according to Terrion and Leonard (2007).

Relationships among students, mentors and instructors affect the successfulness of peer
mentoring. They have different perspective what are the role of the mentor and how would they act.
There are also several roles that was enacted by mentors such as peer leader, learning coach,
student advocate and trusted friend according to Janet W. Colvin and Marinda Ashman (2010).

The researcher will identify the student’s level of competency based on the performance
tasks results, how peer mentoring help the students in acquiring the required skills for Shielded
Metal Arc Welding and what peer mentoring plan can be used to improve the learners welding
skills.
 This study is focused on the competency level of the SMAW students based on the
performance task results, and on peer mentoring as a strategy which will help increase the students’
competency level. This will be participated by the Grade 11 students of Taysan Senior High School
this school year 2019-2020.

The researcher will make sure that the students’ performance tasks results on the first
quarter will be recorded and evaluated carefully to be able to assess their practical skills. Also, the
researcher will seek the students’ stand on peer mentoring as a helpful strategy for skills
improvement through a survey questionnaire.

The researcher will provide comprehensive performance rubrics to get the student’s level of
competency.

The individual average performance will be computed through the weighted mean formula
and that will become the basis for preparing the Peer Monitoring Plan.