Mentoring Matters

Mentoring Matters explains a reproducible model for maximizing the potential of leaders and helping them go the distance. It gets behind the issues of leadership skills to address the leader as a person - their spirituality, emotional health, key relationships, vulnerabilities and rhythms of life. This approach to mentoring is highly flexible so that it can be tailor-made for each mentoring partnership, not relying on a strict format or curriculum. The mentor functions as a doctor of the soul, pulling us back to our most noble intentions and perceptive insights. The approach is formal and organised - and highly effective.

Mentorship is a catalyst capable of unleashing one's potential for discovery, curiosity, and participation in STEMM and subsequently improving the training environment in which that STEMM potential is fostered. Mentoring relationships provide developmental spaces in which students' STEMM skills are honed and pathways into STEMM fields can be discovered. Because mentorship can be so influential in shaping the future STEMM workforce, its occurrence should not be left to chance or idiosyncratic implementation. There is a gap between what we know about effective mentoring and how it is practiced in higher education. The Science of Effective Mentorship in STEMM studies mentoring programs and practices at the undergraduate and graduate levels. It explores the importance of mentorship, the science of mentoring relationships, mentorship of underrepresented students in STEMM, mentorship structures and behaviors, and institutional cultures that support mentorship. This report and its complementary interactive guide present insights on effective programs and practices that can be adopted and adapted by institutions, departments, and individual faculty members.

Mentoring Matters is an action plan with all the resources necessary to launch a school-based mentoring program. The forty-five thirty-minute lessons will serve as the foundation of your mentoring program.

Mentoring Matters, A Practical Approach to fostering Reflective Practices, gives insight into the author’s experiences and the knowledge given to him by other seasoned teachers to help him succeed not only in the classroom but with his students. All too often, we read about what a mentor can do to help the mentee, but not so often is it about giving new teachers strategies on how they can assist their students, and that is what the author of this book conveys. Furthermore, this book provides real-world information on how your students may respond to you and assist you as well. For example, the author uses the art of storytelling to tell the story of Alice Smith, a recent college graduate at the start of her first teaching assignment. The purpose of her story is to cause you to think, reflect, and examine your instructional practice to foster the art of being a reflective practitioner. More importantly, the author gives the reader a basis in which to start an ongoing dialogue with their mentor about developing best practices for themselves as new teachers that will affect every aspect of an educator’s career. The tone of this book is sincere and genuine, with useful information to ponder over. This book is a must-read for all new teachers as well as veteran teachers looking to get a fresh take on teaching and learning.

"This is a tool that every teacher in every school should be using!"--Maureen Moylan, nontraditional educational training program director --Book Jacket.

Youth mentoring programs must change in order to become truly effective. The world’s leading expert shows how. Youth mentoring is among the most popular forms of volunteering in the world. But does it work? Does mentoring actually help young people succeed? In Older and Wiser, mentoring expert Jean Rhodes draws on more than thirty years of empirical research to survey the state of the field. Her conclusion is sobering: there is little evidence that most programs—even renowned, trusted, and long-established ones—are effective. But there is also much reason for hope. Mentoring programs, Rhodes writes, do not focus on what young people need. Organizations typically prioritize building emotional bonds between mentors and mentees. But research makes clear that effective programs emphasize the development of specific social, emotional, and intellectual skills. Most mentoring programs are poorly suited to this effort because they rely overwhelmingly on volunteers, who rarely have the training necessary to teach these skills to young people. Moreover, the one-size-fits-all models of major mentoring organizations struggle to deal with the diverse backgrounds of mentees, the psychological effects of poverty on children, and increasingly hard limits to upward mobility in an unequal world. Rhodes doesn’t think we should give up on mentoring—far from it. She shows that evidence-based approaches can in fact create meaningful change in young people’s lives. She also recommends encouraging “organic” mentorship opportunities—in schools, youth sports leagues, and community organizations.