Mentoring Guidelines and Mentor Training Resource
These documents provide a framework for the training of mentors. They offer a range of information, ideas and activities to assist mentors develop mentoring knowledge and skills. They are offered as a resource from which others might develop, or begin to develop, training material relevant to their organisation.
An Ako Aotearoa Regional Hub Fund project
Project Team - Debra Robertson-Welsh and Mark Kirby, Manukau Institute of Technology
Date - 2009
The Mentoring Guidelines project report
This document includes:
- Principles
- Practices
- Mentor Training Resource (available as a separate document)
- Selected Bibliography
- Mentor Role Description
- Template Forms
Mentor Training Resource
This document provides the framework for the training of mentors at Manukau Institute of Technology. It offers a range of information, ideas and activities to assist mentors develop mentoring knowledge and skills.
It is offered as a resource from which others might develop, or begin to develop, training material relevant to their organisation.
Sections include:
- Background
- Code of Ethics
- Defining the Mentor
- Defining Mentoring
- Listening and Questioning
- Reflection and Review
Author: Dr Philip Harris-Worthington
About the Project
In 2008 Manukau Institute of received a grant from Ako Aotearoa to assist in designing and trialling a mentoring programme for academic staff as a way of enhancing the student experience at MIT. The project was developed in recognition of the value added potential of mentoring support for academic staff, and a perceived gap in how academic staff are supported at MIT and similar institutions.
The project has run for approximately 8 months, and so far has involved 22 mentees and the training of 12 mentors. The mentees have included new teachers as well as existing lecturing staff who, for one reason or another, have requested support with their teaching practice.
In the context of this project a mentor is someone who undertakes a pastoral-coaching role, tailoring support and advice to the needs of each “mentee”. This has meant directing the mentee to resources to help with issues or goals, coaching in technical skills or directing the mentee to appropriate technical support, role modelling excellent practice, providing opportunities to observe exemplary practitioners and to be observed by peers. In some cases mentors advised mentees on issues experienced in their host departments and advocated for them as and when appropriate.
At time of writing there is no data measuring changes in student perceptions of teaching as a consequence of the mentoring project, although this is forthcoming. There is, however, overwhelming feedback from mentees and mentors which indicates an increase in the confidence levels of mentees with their teaching, and a genuine belief that their teaching practice has benefited by their involvement with this project.
There have been other identified benefits to the mentoring programme, much of which is predicted by the literature on mentoring. For example, mentors have acknowledged their own personal and professional growth as one of the reciprocal benefits of mentoring; increased interdepartmental co-operation and dialogue has occurred in pockets where it might not otherwise have happened, and networks or communities have developed from the mentor-mentee grouping. These secondary outcomes are considered significant.
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