Mentoring is a support function which can be found in many environments, for example in a workplace, at a school or university, and in sports clubs and teams. It is however very important to distinguish between coaching and mentoring. According to the Management Mentors website (www.management-mentors.com) coaching is about specific functions whereas mentoring is a more personal relationship focussing on development as a whole. Another important distinction is that a mentor should not be someone's direct supervisor whereas a coach could well be. This is important as a mentor should be able to listen and give advice impartially and the mentee will also be more relaxed and open when not dealing with their direct supervisor. A mentor could therefore be a manager from a different department, someone outwith the direct chain of command. In actual fact, being mentored by an equal, in the form of peer mentoring, seems to have become a very popular trend. It was within this framework that I acted as a mentor for Nicky during her module Customised Study for Blended and Online Education.
Although I had no previous experience of mentoring I have had training in coaching in the past so I was therefore familiar with the basic concept. Kay and Hind's "A practical guide to mentoring" (2009) also provided a very clear overview of the subject which helped a great deal. As Nicky and I would never meet face-to-face during the trimester we had to carry out online or e-mentoring - mentoring which is conducted totally in a virtual environment. For our purposes we chose to experiement with a few virtual meeting products but ultimately decided that Skype was the simplest and most effective way to meet. Or initial plan was to meet online once a week on a Sunday evening and talk or chat for about 30 minutes. If more time was required and our schedules allowed the meetings could be extended. Sometimes the real mentoring was finished within the 30 minutes and the remaining time was filled with smalltalk or other non-mentoring related course activities.
In order to ensure some structure in the mentoring sessions, and at Keith's suggestion, I decided to mentor using Sir John Whitmore's GROW model. In this model GROW stands for Goal, Reality, Options and Will (or Wrap-up). This technique can be used either within one individual mentoring session or across several sessions. The first point, Goal, involves defining the objectives or topics the mentee wants to discuss. In the second stage, Reality, the present situation should be discussed. In the third stage, Options, the mentor and mentee should explore possible choices or options to address this situation and in the fourth stage, Will, the mentor and mentee should agree on the next steps to be taken. This is a very clear and straightforward model which is easy to follow. In reality however, my mentoring sessions sometimes were more unstructured and took more the form of a casual conversation over a virtual cup of tea. This however did not always seem to be a problem for Nicky and also added a missing social element to this trimester. I will leave it up to Nicky to confirm if the sessions did help but I certainly learnt from them and I hope they helped her too.
Sources:
Kay, D. & Hind, R. (2009). A Practical guide to mentoring: How to help others achieve their goals. (4th edition). Oxford: How To Books.
http://www.management-mentors.com/resources/corporate-mentoring-programs-faqs/ [accessed 28.04.2012]
http://www.msue.msu.edu/objects/content_revision/download.cfm/item_id.378012/workspace_id.298457/GROW_Model_?_Four-Step_Questioning_Approach_.pdf/ [accessed 28.04.2012]
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/study/cll/othercourses/wmcett/resources/practitionerarea/mentoring/planning/grow/ [accessed 28.04.2012]
Posts mit dem Label mentoring werden angezeigt. Alle Posts anzeigen
Posts mit dem Label mentoring werden angezeigt. Alle Posts anzeigen
Mittwoch, 2. Mai 2012
Mittwoch, 7. März 2012
Mentoring Issues
Nicky and I had a mentoring session today so I thought it would be good to list the points we discussed so we don't forget anything and also to have an example of the kind of issues that can be raised in an e-mentoring situation.
The first issue Nicky had today was how to identify which books are worth investing it. I think this is a perfectly justifiable question for any students today what with tuition fees rising and purse-strings being drawn tighter across the country. Academic books can sometimes be very expensive indeed and for a distance learning student getting hold of the books from the university library may not be easy or even possible. Some books are of course available in digital form and sites like Amazon sometimes have previews of a few pages but this is not always a good basis to make a buying decision on. Luckily for Nicky I have already completed a paper on her chosen topic (mobile learning) so I was able to give her my own personal recommendations based on the books I read here in the past. Not everyone is so lucky though so I think this could be a situation where more thought could be given to the availability of good literature. It is definitely a point where distance learners are at a disadvanatage compared to on-campus learners.
The second point we discussed was how to organise and control all of the sources that you find in the course of your research. Here we discovered we are the exact opposite - Nicky likes to read documents printed out and take notes digitally, I prefer to read the documents digitally and take my notes using pen and paper. Either way, it seems like we both have our difficulties with retaining order but perhaps tools like zotero might be the answer. I have never used it but zotero, which is a free Firefox plugin, promises to take all of the hassle out of remembering sources, attributing quotes, writing references correctly etc. If it works that well in practice it could definitely be helpful during the rest of my degree so I have downloaded it to give it a try.
The final problem we discussed today was a technical issue regarding the use of google docs to host questionnaires. This is something I used myself last year and I found it very easy to use. The system for creating questions is powerful but it is still easy to use. As recipients respond to your questionnaire their responses are automatically added to a spreadsheet and once you have some responses google docs can automatically generate a statistical summary and lovely graphics of the results. I am actually using google docs again this trimester to repeat my learning and technology survey from last year. I am sure that more professional studies might frown on the use of google docs due to privacy and data security fears but for a small scale project it seems like google docs works great. I look forward to seeing the results of Nicky's research.
Hopefully our mentoring session managed to address all of these issues today, we will just have to wait and see!
Neil
The first issue Nicky had today was how to identify which books are worth investing it. I think this is a perfectly justifiable question for any students today what with tuition fees rising and purse-strings being drawn tighter across the country. Academic books can sometimes be very expensive indeed and for a distance learning student getting hold of the books from the university library may not be easy or even possible. Some books are of course available in digital form and sites like Amazon sometimes have previews of a few pages but this is not always a good basis to make a buying decision on. Luckily for Nicky I have already completed a paper on her chosen topic (mobile learning) so I was able to give her my own personal recommendations based on the books I read here in the past. Not everyone is so lucky though so I think this could be a situation where more thought could be given to the availability of good literature. It is definitely a point where distance learners are at a disadvanatage compared to on-campus learners.
The second point we discussed was how to organise and control all of the sources that you find in the course of your research. Here we discovered we are the exact opposite - Nicky likes to read documents printed out and take notes digitally, I prefer to read the documents digitally and take my notes using pen and paper. Either way, it seems like we both have our difficulties with retaining order but perhaps tools like zotero might be the answer. I have never used it but zotero, which is a free Firefox plugin, promises to take all of the hassle out of remembering sources, attributing quotes, writing references correctly etc. If it works that well in practice it could definitely be helpful during the rest of my degree so I have downloaded it to give it a try.
The final problem we discussed today was a technical issue regarding the use of google docs to host questionnaires. This is something I used myself last year and I found it very easy to use. The system for creating questions is powerful but it is still easy to use. As recipients respond to your questionnaire their responses are automatically added to a spreadsheet and once you have some responses google docs can automatically generate a statistical summary and lovely graphics of the results. I am actually using google docs again this trimester to repeat my learning and technology survey from last year. I am sure that more professional studies might frown on the use of google docs due to privacy and data security fears but for a small scale project it seems like google docs works great. I look forward to seeing the results of Nicky's research.
Hopefully our mentoring session managed to address all of these issues today, we will just have to wait and see!
Neil
Sonntag, 4. März 2012
Theoretical Models for (Peer) e-Mentoring
Last week we had an excellent Virtual Office Hours (VOH) session with myself, Marty and Julia in which we really got to grips with some of the theories which could be applied to the use of peer mentoring in a blended or online course. Marty has already posted on the subject in his blog:
http://limey76.blogspot.com/
but I think the issue is so important that, at the risk of repeating something Marty has already said, I would like to also share my thoughts here.
Before I begin that there is also some important background information I have gathered from Ormond Simpson's "Supporting Students in Online, Open and Distance Learning" (2002).
Simpson begins by dividing student support into two distinct areas - academic suport and non-academic support. Whilst academic support involved tasks like defining and explaining, non-academic support is concerned with advising and acting. As the peer support I am providing for Nicky is being done in a non-teaching role I therefore think it falls into the non-academic category. Simpson later lists the characteristics of non-academic support as empathy, stress management, listening, warmth and openness. This is hopefully exactly what Nicky has been receiving from me as a mentor so far.
Another interesting practical point that Simpson raises are the results of a study into which sources of support are most important for students. 32%, the largest amount, said that family and friends where the most important source of support followed by tutors in second place with 29%. The third most important source was other students with 21% and lastly support given by the institution was voted most important by only 17%. This result makes it clear that the majority of students find family and friends or fellow students to be the most important source of support. If this support is being provided informally then it should be encouraged by the institution, perhaps by facilitating ways for students to meet or pairing off mentors and mentees.
In our VOH session we talked about how Garrison et al's Community of Inquiry model can be applied to mentoring. Garrison breaks the Community of Inquiry down into three components which all need to be fulfilled in order to create a success learning environment: cognitive presence, social presence and teaching presence. At first glance, it seems that mentoring can be order to the social presence area of the framework. Social presence is the ability of learners to be seen as real people whilst studying in a virtual environment. Having contact with another student in a mentor-mentee role will obviously allow this. In addition I think there is also an argument to include mentoring in the cognitive presence sector of this model. Cognitive presence is about being able to establish meaning and I think mentors can provide support in this role helping others to make sense of the information they receive. Although for this module we are purely concerned with peer mentoring, successful online teachers should also be providing a mentoring function to their students. In that case it would therefore be possible to also assign mentoring to the teaching presence sector and thereby place mentoring directly in the middle of the Community of Inquiry model - in other words, right at the centre of the educational experience.
In addition, we also briefly discussed the cybergogy model and in my research I also found that Palloff and Pratt have some interesting points to make regarding mentoring. To stop this post getting any longer I shall return to these in the near future.
Neil
Garrison et al (2000) Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. In The internet and higher education 2, (2-3): 87 - 105
Simpson, O., (2002) Supporting students in online, open and distance learning (2e), London: Kogan Page
http://communitiesofinquiry.com/welcome [Accessed 4.3.2012]
http://limey76.blogspot.com/
but I think the issue is so important that, at the risk of repeating something Marty has already said, I would like to also share my thoughts here.
Before I begin that there is also some important background information I have gathered from Ormond Simpson's "Supporting Students in Online, Open and Distance Learning" (2002).
Simpson begins by dividing student support into two distinct areas - academic suport and non-academic support. Whilst academic support involved tasks like defining and explaining, non-academic support is concerned with advising and acting. As the peer support I am providing for Nicky is being done in a non-teaching role I therefore think it falls into the non-academic category. Simpson later lists the characteristics of non-academic support as empathy, stress management, listening, warmth and openness. This is hopefully exactly what Nicky has been receiving from me as a mentor so far.
Another interesting practical point that Simpson raises are the results of a study into which sources of support are most important for students. 32%, the largest amount, said that family and friends where the most important source of support followed by tutors in second place with 29%. The third most important source was other students with 21% and lastly support given by the institution was voted most important by only 17%. This result makes it clear that the majority of students find family and friends or fellow students to be the most important source of support. If this support is being provided informally then it should be encouraged by the institution, perhaps by facilitating ways for students to meet or pairing off mentors and mentees.
In our VOH session we talked about how Garrison et al's Community of Inquiry model can be applied to mentoring. Garrison breaks the Community of Inquiry down into three components which all need to be fulfilled in order to create a success learning environment: cognitive presence, social presence and teaching presence. At first glance, it seems that mentoring can be order to the social presence area of the framework. Social presence is the ability of learners to be seen as real people whilst studying in a virtual environment. Having contact with another student in a mentor-mentee role will obviously allow this. In addition I think there is also an argument to include mentoring in the cognitive presence sector of this model. Cognitive presence is about being able to establish meaning and I think mentors can provide support in this role helping others to make sense of the information they receive. Although for this module we are purely concerned with peer mentoring, successful online teachers should also be providing a mentoring function to their students. In that case it would therefore be possible to also assign mentoring to the teaching presence sector and thereby place mentoring directly in the middle of the Community of Inquiry model - in other words, right at the centre of the educational experience.
In addition, we also briefly discussed the cybergogy model and in my research I also found that Palloff and Pratt have some interesting points to make regarding mentoring. To stop this post getting any longer I shall return to these in the near future.
Neil
Garrison et al (2000) Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. In The internet and higher education 2, (2-3): 87 - 105
Simpson, O., (2002) Supporting students in online, open and distance learning (2e), London: Kogan Page
http://communitiesofinquiry.com/welcome [Accessed 4.3.2012]
Sonntag, 19. Februar 2012
Focus found, lost and found again!
A week is a long time in politics and a day is a long time in Applied Practice in Blended and Online Teaching. Having had a set-back with my original focus idea this week, I was pleased to decide on a mobile learning expert session and podcasting as the focus for this module. I had already ordered two books of podcasting from Amazon and then in the virtual office hours that same day my discussion with Keith took a different turn and we decided that I should take mentoring as my second focus rather than podcasting. The logic behind this was to keep everything focussing around one area. At first glance mentoring may not seem to have anything in particular to do with mobile learning but in this case I will be mentoring fellow-student Nicky who is currently working through the Customised Study module with her focus on, guess what... mobile learning! My focus for this module is now therefore presenting an expert session on mobile learning whilst simultaneously mentoring a student investigating the same area. It seems like a great opportunity to kill two birds with one stone and refresh and deepen my knowledge of mentoring.
In a previous job I did a training course on coaching which I thought might be similar to mentoring. In actual fact a quick search of the internet tells me that experts consider coaching and mentoring to be two different things so before I go any further I think a definition is in order. Becky Wai-Packard of Mount Holyoak College shares a definition of mentoring as:
"a relationship between a less experienced individual, called a mentee or protégé, and a more experienced individual known as a mentor... that fosters the mentee’s professional, academic, or personal development (Donaldson, Ensher, & Grant-Vallone, 2000)"
In order to perform successful mentoring some structure is required. Nicky and I have had a first meeting in which we discussed this structure and agreed that we would write a mentoring contract in which both of us clearly state what we expect from the mentoring relationship and what we commit ourselves to contribute. Our first commitment is an agreement to meet online at least once a week with meetings taking place every Friday. Our first meeting this week used Skype but in future we want to use google hangouts which offers the ability to share documents and desktops which might make the mentoring process even more rewarding. As a theoretical basis for the mentoring Keith suggested the GROW model which I am now going to use. GROW is an acronym for Goal - Current Reality - Options - Will (MindTools, undated) which describes the four main steps the mentoring process should go through. As I continue my research and active mentoring it may be that other tools also become relevant and I will explore as many of them as time allows.
For the moment I now need to get my Learning Agreement submitted, work on the mentoring agreement for Nicky and start working on my expert session. I can already tell that the next few weeks are going to be busy but also very interesting.
http://ehrweb.aaas.org/sciMentoring/Mentor_Definitions_Packard.pdf [accessed 18.2.2012]
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_89.htm [accessed 18.2.2012]
In a previous job I did a training course on coaching which I thought might be similar to mentoring. In actual fact a quick search of the internet tells me that experts consider coaching and mentoring to be two different things so before I go any further I think a definition is in order. Becky Wai-Packard of Mount Holyoak College shares a definition of mentoring as:
"a relationship between a less experienced individual, called a mentee or protégé, and a more experienced individual known as a mentor... that fosters the mentee’s professional, academic, or personal development (Donaldson, Ensher, & Grant-Vallone, 2000)"
In order to perform successful mentoring some structure is required. Nicky and I have had a first meeting in which we discussed this structure and agreed that we would write a mentoring contract in which both of us clearly state what we expect from the mentoring relationship and what we commit ourselves to contribute. Our first commitment is an agreement to meet online at least once a week with meetings taking place every Friday. Our first meeting this week used Skype but in future we want to use google hangouts which offers the ability to share documents and desktops which might make the mentoring process even more rewarding. As a theoretical basis for the mentoring Keith suggested the GROW model which I am now going to use. GROW is an acronym for Goal - Current Reality - Options - Will (MindTools, undated) which describes the four main steps the mentoring process should go through. As I continue my research and active mentoring it may be that other tools also become relevant and I will explore as many of them as time allows.
For the moment I now need to get my Learning Agreement submitted, work on the mentoring agreement for Nicky and start working on my expert session. I can already tell that the next few weeks are going to be busy but also very interesting.
http://ehrweb.aaas.org/sciMentoring/Mentor_Definitions_Packard.pdf [accessed 18.2.2012]
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_89.htm [accessed 18.2.2012]
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