Extracurricular activity based on undergraduates

Higher education in the developing world is challenged byhigh number of students and rigid curricula. Thesechallenges require innovative ways to support studentslearning. In this paper, a new extracurricular activity wasdesigned to promote academic research and self-learningskills using undergraduate–postgraduate peer learning.The course aims tofill the gap in active learning in thedeveloping world. The newly designed course wasdelivered to 20 students from differentfields of studies inSyria. Each group was mentored by a postgraduate studentand supervised by an academic. Students provided positivefeedback on the course design, aims and skillsdevelopment. Comparison of students’academic researchskills was performed through pre- and post-courseevaluation. Significant improvement in literature searchskills was observed (p< 0.05). The proposed course can bereplicated in other developing countries creating aneducational opportunity for research and self-learning skillsamong students at different grades of studies.