Traditional Programs For Academic Mentors And Mentees Are

Mentors serve as a confidant, counselor, guide and advisor to a participant. They share an understanding of the organization, its mission, and the formal and informal operating processes, and share experiences which contributed to their own success, setting an example for the participant to follow. They assist the participant in career development ideas or for pursuing career opportunities. Mentors encourage participants to become more efficient and productive in their career field through self-development and other activities, and suggest appropriate training and developmental opportunities to further the progress of the participant toward leadership positions. The Mentor will provide input to the participant 's supervisor in developing their Individual Development Plan (IDP), helping the participant to set clear, realistic career goals and periodically reviews progress, making constructive suggestions on career development. Vitally important, the Mentor must ensure the mentoring relationship remains visibly and consistently professional. Mentors must ensure that their meetings are for clear purposes related to mentoring, that there is visible progress by the participant toward legitimate mentoring goals, and that office relationships between the mentor and participant

Oftentimes, new teachers are provided with little to no professional guidance, and because of that, nearly fifty percent of teachers leave the classroom within the first five years. This turnover rate not only has an impact on kids, since they lose the person they were connected with, but it also costs the nation roughly 7.4 billion dollars a year. This video, which focuses on the Hillsborough County Public School System, in Tampa, Florida, brings to light the importance of mentor teachers for first and second year teachers. Through the gathering of evidence and classroom observations, these mentor teachers provide the passion for new teachers and help to unlock their potential. Since the implementation of the mentor program their retention of new teachers has gone from 72% to 94%.

For example, as a first year educator, I was told I would receive a mentor for “induction and integration strategies” during my first year of teaching because “novice teachers encounter numerous challenges and demands when beginning their teaching careers in unfamiliar schools” (Rikard & Banville, 2010). I recall on many occasions that my mentor would tell me to come see her if I encountered any instructional challenges. As a new teacher, I expected my mentor to share how she developed her skills through role modeling and providing one-on-one sessions for lesson planning. Yet, this informal practice by teacher mentors reflected an internal norm that was often overlooked by administrators. According to Ingersoll (2003), “46% of all teachers in public schools will leave the profession within their first five years of teaching” (Rikard & Banville, 2010, p. 245)… “due to poor administrative support, difficult teaching loads, feeling powerless and isolated” (Ingersoll & Smith, 2003; Liston, Whitcomb, & Borko, 2006; McCormack & Thomas, 2003a; Rikard & Banville,

The author discusses the importance of mentors in education and the qualities that they demonstrate. She reflects back on some of the formal and informal mentors she had. Ultimately she states, “Having mentors who help you manage the grind of everyday struggles and the challenges of education are crucial to new and early teachers.”

If principals want to improve student achievement in their school, rather than focus on the individual inspection of teaching, they must focus on the collective analysis of evidence of student learning. The key to improved student learning is to ensure more good teaching in more classrooms more of the time. The most powerful strategy for improving both teaching and learning, however, is not by micromanaging instruction but by creating the collaborative culture and collective responsibility of a professional learning community (PLC) (Mattos, 2013). Today, many school districts have adopted a formal mentoring program that consists of matching new teachers with a veteran mentor (Sever,

Stepping into the first day of the mentorship course, I believed I had a solid understanding of how to be a mentor. Using the reason of “I’ve been there before” to justify my selection, I did not realize that there was much more to helping peers than just experience. Through the FIG mentor course, I gained new knowledge that looked at a student holistically and incorporated the differences each individual brings to campus; hopefully, I can apply this knowledge to assist new first-year students who are transitioning from high school to college in the fall.

The creation of a mentorship program is not an easy task. In developing a program for mentorship, many factors must be considered. The first of these factors in the relationship between a mentor and mentee. The program proposed in this paper focuses on developing a 1-to-1 mentorship experience. Prior to the initiation of the mentor-mentee relationship, it is essential to consider preparation of both mentor and mentee. Poronsky (2012) indicated that sufficient preparation of both the mentor and mentee is vital for a successful mentorship relationship. As part of the proposed program, the mentors and the mentee would attend trainings prior to the initiation of the mentorship program to set forth the purposes and expectations of all parties

The issue with the majority of mentoring studies starts at the very beginning, Clutterbuck suggests that the biggest problem for research into mentoring is still to define what it is. (D.Clutterbuck.1996) Phillip suggests that mentoring can have varied meanings and that the terminology exposes a varied amount of assumptions. The example he gives is that mentoring young people has been related to schemes aiming at tutoring, coaching, counselling, role modelling, advising and teaching. Likewise a variety of terms could apply to the young person being mentored such as mentee, apprentice and pupil. The actual process may also have various descriptions given to it such as, helping, advising and guiding. However the knowledge and understanding of

These teachers often have a relevant background in what they are teaching and the schools send them trough transition programs. Some schools have gone to the extreme to solve their problem and have started hiring people without so much as a high school education, but this is what must happen to solve for the shortage. To help better prepare these new teachers mentor programs and introduction training programs have been put in place. CITATION notes that mentor programs bring teacher retion rates up. Mentors and solid introduction programs help the teacher feel secure in their first year of teaching. Because they are assigned a mentor in their same field, if they are feeling overwhelmed or they do not know how to do something they can talk to their mentor for help and reassurance. Along with bringing in unqualified teachers and having mentors some schools have started, “Reducing licensing renewal requirement for retired teachers…” This helps keep teachers who are thinking of leaving the field. They are qualified and making their reentry easier it helps keep

A mentoring teacher is a professional who respects their mentee/student. They understand that showing respect is all about the small things. The teachers respect the ideas and space of their students. A mentoring teacher truly listens to their students and even makes a connection by recognizing nonverbal and verbal clues received by their students that could assist with coming to the student needs. The mentor challenges their students to think critically, press them to grow in some many new ways, and pushes them outside of their comfort zone. A mentor celebrates their students’ success – it could be a simple thank you or good job. The mentor understands that honesty is the foundation of any student/teacher relationship. They understand the

Mentorship is very important in the workplace especially in the area of training and development. The mentor-protégé relationship is a much needed relationship that begins in the early career stage and this relationship involves the current or new employees and the supervisor or other colleagues that provide work-related guidance. The relationship itself is comprehensive and involves “educational, occupational, physical, social, and spiritual development” (Greenhaus,, Callanan, & Godshalk, 2010, p 211). One of the initial task of the early career the establishment of the career field which involves the gaining of the workplace competence, learn what is needed to excel in the organization, and to gain acceptance in the workplace to be recognized as the valued employee. There are many ways of achieving the above mentioned advantages in the workplace which one main method is through the use of the mentorship program.

The term “mentoring” has surged into the literature in many disciplines (e.g., sociology, social psychology, education, management, social work, healthcare management, etc.) over the last several decades. Mentoring emerged in the organizational literature in the late 1970s (e.g., Clawson, 1979; Collins and Scott, 1978; Kanter, 1977; Phillips, 1977; Roche, 1979; Shapiro et al., 1978). Since that time, hundreds of books and articles (popular press, practitioner-oriented, and academic) have been published on mentoring in various organizational settings alone, not to mention other settings in which mentoring has been examined (e.g., teaching, nursing, social work, etc.) (Kelly, 2001). Published works in the organizational literature on mentoring have been anecdotal, conceptual, and empirical; and several journals have dedicated special editions to mentoring. By and large, these published works have highlighted the overwhelming perceived benefits (e.g., increased mobility, promotion opportunity, and total compensation), and minimal perceived drawbacks of mentoring (Campion and Goldfinch, 1983; Kelly, 2001; Scandura, 1992, 1998; Whitely et al., 1991, 1992). Hence, mentoring has been proclaimed as one of the key career development and advancement tools in the

Most schools that hire first year teachers will have a mentor program in place, however, according to Thomas M. McCann and Larry R. Johannessen, authors of “The Role and Responsibility of the Experienced Teacher” explain how simply having a mentor program is not enough to guarantee the success of a first year teacher. McCann and Johannessen explain what makes a poor mentor program; one in which there is an over emphasis on specific meeting times, and the time commitment of such a program is actually counter-intuitive as both sides of the mentor relationship will become frustrated

At my meeting with Ms. Eason, I brought up the idea of a training session for mentors and she was very pleased to see that the program caters towards not only the mentees but also the mentors. She even suggested throwing a pizza party for the mentors to show appreciation and get feedback directly from them. This was an eye-opening moment for me because all this time I had only thought of ways to improve satisfaction rates of the new interns. However, the mentors are also interns as well and Ms. Eason wants to increase the retention rate of all interns, not just the new interns. This realization helped me broaden my perspective and think about how the Mentorship Program can increase the satisfaction rate of all interns, both new and experienced.

In order for the experiment to be conducted appropriately, veteran teachers need to be open for personal growth in their profession. One way they can perform this growth, especially to implement and strength-based curriculum, teachers need to partake in multiple teacher training sessions or mentoring programs. These teacher trainings are different than traditional trainings model because both parties are growing throughout the process, where in traditional training, the mentor is the guide, supporter or advice giver. Ye He (2009), explains the strength-based mentoring is aligned with educative mentoring where both the mentors and mentees are engaged in continued professional growth. Ye He (2009) continues to share “In educative mentoring the learning of the mentors and mentees occurs through meaningful social communication, interactions and practice in reaching co-constructed goals” (p 269).