Module 2

2.1 Collaborating with your Mentee

Collaboration and collaborative conversations are very important in a mentoring relationship.

According to Rachel’s perspective on this, I have to think about how collaborative my own mentoring relationship and conversations are. Also I have to think about the process of mentoring being a form of professional development for the mentor, not just the mentee. 

Could I turn my mentoring process into a series of collaborative projects? Projects where I myself have a stake and interest in?

Activity

Post in the padlet:

Identify 1 or 2 problems/projects/questions, which you think will be of primary interest to your mentee as well as yourself, and share them in the Padlet below .

My post:

"A usual problem of my mentees is the time and the use of ICT. 

1) About the time, the teacher-students usually wonder how they can manage teaching time and how they can fit all their work in the given time in the classroom.

2) The second problem they are aware of is how they can adjust their teaching with the new technologies and how they can take advantage of them during their teaching."

2.2 Developing a Climate of Trust with your Mentee

For an effective mentoring relationship and for effective collaboration to happen, trust is an essential ingredient. Without trust, a mentee will not openly share their concerns and challenges with you, making your work as a mentor very difficult, if not impossible.

In the first module already some ideas were shared about strategies to use in a first mentoring session that can help develop a trustful relationship. In this section we want to look at this in more detail. 

Start out by listening to some first ideas of Rachel on why trust is so important and how to develop a climate of trust.

Now browse through the extensive list of ways to build trust in the Glideshow below, prepared by TeachOntario in Canada and based on feedback of practising mentors. Just click on the below image and then scroll down to see a list of strategies to use to build or rebuild trust with your mentee.

Alternatively click here for a simple pdf version of the Glideshow.

Activity

Choose one of the example strategies identified in the Glideshow (or pdf) above and share an example of implementing that strategy in the Tricider below.

For example, if you choose the “Celebrating successes together” strategy, you might share a story of how you shared a piece of cake with your mentee in celebration of mastering a specific challenge of the mentee. In other words, outline a situation how you have implemented the strategy or how you could implement it. Make sure to always indicate which of the strategies identified in the Glideshow you are referring to.

2.3 Stimulating and scaffolding thoughtful reflection and discussion

Stephen Covey, an American educator and author of numerous books:

“Most people do no listen with the intent to understand, they listen with the intent to reply.”

A conversation map in mediating thinking

Activity 2.3

18/05/17 13:00

•  Reply

Description of a mentoring situation

You are being assigned as a mentor to a beginning teacher who has started his induction year at your secondary school 7 months ago. You have already had a couple of first mentoring sessions together.

One day, in the staff room during lunch time, your mentee explains to you that some students do not respect him, and some of them speak in class and he does not know how to deal with the situation.

He is very stressed and feels one of the reasons he is not handling the situation well is because he does not have sufficient time to prepare his lessons. He is teaching 3 different subjects to 7 different classes between the ages of 13 and 16, each with around 20 students. He has also volunteered to support the preparations for the upcoming school play.

Your mentee explains that a colleague in his department has told him to be stricter and more authoritative with a louder and deeper voice. But first attempts at doing this have gone wrong resulting in a confrontation with the students.

Your Headteacher has recently approached you and asked for an update on the progress made by your mentee as a parent recently phoned her complaining about the beginning teacher.

Your response

You are now entering into a mentoring session with your mentee.

What do you tell your mentee? What questions will you ask him? What information do you share with him? What will you address first, what last?

Think about some of the points made in this section and in the Conversation Map of TeachOntario and include these in your answer. Take a look at how others would approach this situation.

My response:

First, I would let him express himself and tell me everything he feels about it.

A. Phase of planning

Then, I would ask him to find some possible solutions he thinks that are appropriate for the problem.

The other step would be for me to propose him to design some alternative activities, in case the first ones do not work.

b. Reflecting

Afterwards, I would make a conversation on how it is natural to feel stressed, but that also every teacher may have felt this way.

C. Problem-solving + Reflecting

In the end, I would let my mentee try the activities he has planned and wait for our next communication and for the feedback.