Mentoring
“Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen, and a push in the right direction.” John C. Crosby
“The evidence is convincing: A focused, systematic mentoring program has a positive influence on the performance of new teachers—and is advantageous to mentors as well. Above all, this support for new teachers benefits their students.” ASCD Volume 58, John H. Holloway
How can we help you?
How can we help each other?
WAFLT members are invited to participate in our mentoring program, one of the many benefits of membership. We offer two options:
- The Two-way Mentoring Model acknowledges the valuable skills, fresh insights, and experiences that both parties bring to the mentoring partnership. Mentoring partnerships are formed based on the strengths and areas of improvement identified by each teacher through the teacher self-assessment tools of the TELL (Teacher Effectiveness for Language Learning) project (https://www.tellproject.org/tools/self-assessments/ ) that is aligned with our World Readiness Standards for Learning Languages (www.actfl.org )
- The Traditional Model of the educational mentoring relationship pairs a more experienced teacher with a teacher who is new to the profession. Additionally, a teacher with expertise in a specific topic could be paired with a teacher seeking guidance in that area. While the traditional model is a one-way sharing of information and expertise, the traditional mentoring relationship is mutually beneficial.
Characteristics of both mentoring models are:
- Short term/clearly defined goals: The proposed length of the mentoring relationship is three months, with a mid-point progress update at six weeks, although pairs could opt to continue to work together for subsequent periods.
- Ease of reporting process: The energy of participants in either of the above mentoring relationships will be focused on fruitful information exchanges, rather than on cumbersome application and reporting procedures.
- Ripple effect of professional growth: Mentoring reports may be shared online so future mentoring participants can learn from the experiences of others.
- Mentor partners set their parameters, communication platforms, resources
WAFLT supports mentor partners by establishing connections and providing resources to the partners (as requested) throughout the professional development experience.
If you are interested in participating, please apply here. For questions or further information, please contact: profdev@waflt email. All mentoring participants will receive a “Great Thought A Day” notepad!
Further Resources:
See the WAFLT eVoice for the new “Mentoring Matters” column! Do you have a story about mentoring that you’d like to share? Please consider submitting yours to: profdev@waflt email..
Watch an inspiring Ted Talk about The 5 Types of Mentors You Need in Your Life
Why Mentoring is So Vital to New Teachers and Veterans Alike, Room 241, Blog from Concordia University Portland
Article and Activity for self and peer assessment and coaching From Intercom, a weekly e-newsletter from CASLS https://caslsintercom.uoregon.edu/site/index
Knight, S. (2018, November 5). Developing Proficiencies and Managing Deficiencies. CASLS InterCom. Available from https://caslsintercom.uoregon.edu/content/25958
This supporting activity … provides guidance to educators wishing to develop peer observation tools to use to engage one another in positive, proficiency-oriented PLCs that identify, celebrate, and build upon the strengths of their members.
https://caslsintercom.uoregon.edu/content/25957 (activity)
A resource for self reflection or to guide a mentor/mentee partnership: The EPIC Growth plan (http://www.tellproject.org/tools/epic-growth-plan/)This tool can be used by teachers who choose to self-assess how well they reflect TELL criteria for one specific domain or for the complete TELL Framework.
