C) Mentoring reflective leaders & Entrepreneurs

Introduction

In Educate! we refer to our young facilitators as mentors, we have tested a program called Teachers as Mentors and we even refer to managers as mentors. What's the buzz about mentoring? Learn about it here and learn how to design a mentoring session for back home projects.

A mentor is someone who believes in the potential of others and selflessly invests in them.

Mentor vs Facilitator.mp4

Models for effective mentoring

Do you recall the experiential learning cycle? If not, look at it again here. Learning happens when we realize we are not achieving desired results. Through reflection a mentor can help us understand why we did not manage to achieve our results. A couple of scholars and practitioners have build further onto this idea of learning from experience and developed methods that can be used in a mentoring session.

There are lots of mentoring models, for example google the STARR framework or Gibbs reflective cycle. In Educate! mentoring focuses on helping learners apply their skills in the student business club and ultimately in setting up a back home project!

  • Our mentors have set up a back home project themselves, making them great role models.
  • The LEC, recurring Skills Lab sessions and club visits offer platforms for scholars and mentors to build positive relationships.
  • Mentoring sessions happen at a group level to help scholars reflect on their experiences and find solutions to challenges faced or expected barriers.

The GROW model

While there are many other mentoring models, today we shall look at the GROW model to mentoring. This model offers a structure for mentoring sessions in which a mentor can help a mentee GROW. Within the session the mentor facilitates a conversation around each of these 4 areas. What is important is that the mentor digs a bit deeper. Why is the Reality the way it is now? How does the mentee feel about this? What is important for them? When it comes to Options an Will, the mentor should be a subtle role, giving the mentee the choice in what they want to do. What the mentor can add is sharing what implications each option could bring and share from their own experience.

Applying mentoring to back home projects

Mentoring is a very open-ended process because it is goal-driven. Since we work with young mentors it is helpful to give them more guidance as to how they can mentor young people in starting a project back home. We can help them:

  • Articulate their own experiences, challenges and successes in starting a back home project.
  • By providing session guides.
  • Identify common challenges faced in starting back home projects and possible solutions.
  • Being a mentor to them ourselves.

Assignment #3 Create a Back Home Project mentoring guide

In future, our mentoring will happen mostly during group mentoring sessions either at a club level or in-class. Your assignment is to develop a guide for a 40 minute group mentoring session that a young mentor can run with 20 mentees. Include the following:

  • Notes to the mentor on how they can ensure the mentees will safe during the session
  • 5 proposed topics for the mentoring session the mentees can choose from (i.e. common challenges in starting a BHP)
  • Step by step structure of how the session will run

E-mail your guide to designacademy@experienceeducate.org