Subject-based Student Mentoring at VU
MENTOR TRAINING
Mentor Training sessions are conducted by the subject staff member, an SLS staff member and a staff member from Student Counselling.
A Typical Mentor Training Agenda looks like this.
- Welcome and overview of training
session and the students' roles as mentors.
- The subject. Discussion
of the semester's topics and the first assignment.
- Dates, times
and location of mentoring sessions to be provided if possible.
- Getting the
first session moving: Try to get the students helping each other. What to do
and how. Focus on being friendly and practical, and where possible have fun.
Get down to issues in the subject as soon as is practical. Focus on students
being active. Emphasise that sessions need to be planned even if the plan
changes or is not used at all. In pairs discuss and write down ideas for
what to do in first session.
- Share ideas as whole group.
The ideas are discussed and improved upon.
- Show video
of real students running real mentoring sessions. It emphasises importance
of fun, collaborative and active learning.
- Discussion
of ideas. Ideas develop and change based on seeing video.
- Ways to end the first
mentoring session: getting the student participants to think ahead to the next
mentoring session: suggest a mini evaluation of this week/what were they happy
with, what would they like to know more about/focus for next week.
- When to know it's time to
refer someone: the nitty gritty of personal boundaries and referrals.
- Importance of maintaining
contact with the team. Telephone/email/drop in. Emphasise team effort and
support.
- Organise day and time to
meet soon after having run one or two sessions. Opportunity then and by
email/telephone/personal contact to seek help/ask more questions.
- Training session evaluation.
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