@TisForTraining 332: Dan Knew My Name

On the call were Daniel Bassill, Jill Hurst-Wahl, Tom Haymes, Diane Huckabay, Buffy Hamilton (in chat), Paul Signorelli, Andrea Snyder, and Maurice Coleman. Tonight’s topic was the role of mentoring in training-teaching-learning.

Daniel started the conversation talking about how he got started in tutoring. Then talked about adult-to-adult mentoring and adult-to-student mentoring. Mentoring relationships need time to grow. In his institute, there is structure which helps the mentoring relationships to grow. In his mentoring program, the students were often from low income areas, while the mentors were from local companies.

Later in our conversation, Daniel noted that he has used data to understand where a mentoring program could be most helpful (knowing that you might not be able to have a program everywhere).

Paul, as part of the Daily Bruin Alumni Network, is now mentoring college students who are staff at the Daily Bruin paper at UCLA. He talked about mentoring in that environment. BTW in some towns, the college newspaper IS the community newspaper, which means they are filling a void. That can mean that mentoring is even more important. Some students comes back as mentors when they are adults.

Jill talked about mentoring being one of four roles:Andrea noted that when she’s mentoring someone, she is learning from them as they are learning from her.

Paul noted that there is value in all mentoring programs as long as the programs are clearly defined.

Maurice gave an example of mentoring first time conference participants.  And being a first-time conference participant is something to which we all can relate.

Tom noted that all teachers are mentors, sometimes en masse. Students often do not know how to learn, which is something he is willing to help them with. He and Jill both talked about part of mentoring is helping someone (students) with useful skills.

This was a wonderful conversation! You can listen to it all on TalkShoe or in many other places where you get your podcasts.

Resources

• • Jamie Birt. (2022) 24 Reasons Why Mentorship Is Important for Mentee and Mentor.
  • Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC
  • Defining terms: Tutoring. Mentoring. Same Words. Different Meaning.
  • Tom Haymes. (2022) Learn at Your Own Risk: 9 Strategies for Thriving in the Pandemic and Beyond.
  • Daniel Bassill. (2022) Tips for volunteers in tutor/mentor programs.