Mentoring Portfolio
Introduction - Plan
Introduction
I began this journey into mentoring with one central question that would carry me on a quest throughout my coursework and hopefully throughout the future. What is mentoring? At first glance, most would say that mentoring is an easy concept to define. However, as most of us have learned this semester, mentoring is not easy to categorize or define succinctly. Mentoring entails many different aspects of relationships and pinpointing a "catch-all" definition is easier said than done. Personally, I think of mentoring as a state of mind rather than as physical acts. As a state of mind, I think mentoring is about me-"Be the change you want to make in the World" (Ganhdi). For me, my mentoring is centered on striving to be the "best me" I can be. Through this endeavor, I attempt to develop relationships that provide opportunities to "dance," to practice the art of giving and receiving. Through modeling this belief, it is hoped that my mentee(s) will develop a similar belief and therein begins the mentoring dance.
Plan
My mentoring plan began with me. Before beginning to the process of mentoring someone else, it was important to be "self-aware." So I started with me, and I created a personal snapshot . This snapshot identified my personal strengths and weaknesses; potential opportunities for reaching that potential; possible challenges that I may face; and key steps that I could initiate to build on my strengths and overcome my challenges. As I look back at this snapshot and the personal strengths and weaknesses that I identified, I realize that they demonstrate or reflect the ying/yang concept. Each being a mirror opposite of the other. Goal of developing a balance between the as noted in our ying/yang discussions, both are necessary. Do I need to include anything here about whether I think I've done a good job of aligning those items?
After completing my own personal snapshot, it became clear to me that my Action Research was closely related to my strengths/weakness and goals of my personal snapshot. With this in mind, I chose to mentor my colleagues involved in my Action Research Project. Through the same analysis steps that I completed for my personal snapshot, I developed a group snapshot of strengths/weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges for the group as a whole. The strengths and the weaknesses of this group do not provide quite the same ying/yang mirror that they did for me personally. I would suspect that this is because we are dealing with a group of diverse people. With this in mind, I began to build upon the work of Dennis Littky on his idea of everyone alike different . I feel that this is important since I am dealing with a group rather than an individual. Throughout my mentoring experience, I continually strived to find ways to accomplish this goal and provide the individual mentoring that each member might require. After completing my group snapshot, I develop an idea of trying to provide a framework of goals that would work for the entire group and then within that plan, try to provide individual support as needed to suit the needs of individual members . This turned out to be much easier said than done, but through reflection on my process I've realized that I will need to find commonalities among the group that are individual to each person, but that allow me to overlap when possible and thereby help to make the process of treating everyone alike but differently. In reviewing the 5 most important things that I could do to build on my group's strengths and overcome their challenges, I believe that I have developed a solid foundation for their continued growth through the community of practice initiative that I am cultivating .
In order the assist me in developing a suitable "global plan" for my group mentoring project, one that aligned with my action research goals, I developed a framework plan that identified goals for the group, success indicators, techniques, and resources. This will guide me in developing mentoring activities for the entire group and also allow me opportunities to serve individual needs as needed. You can view this document here .
Progress
With only three face to face meeting during our course time, progress must be measured in a variety of ways-physical meetings and virtual meetings. Our first meeting was quite restrictive as some of the group didn't really know each other very well. This was a natural start to such an initiative. As I stepped out and displayed an openness and a desire to be of service to the members, they in turn became more trusting of me. By our third face-to-face meetings you could see that bonding was occurring among the group members. This is evidenced by some of the email messages and discussion threads. I have tried to create a "safe" environment where members can experiment with the technology necessary to collaborate virtually. During our first meeting, several members would apologize for lacking certain skills. However, over time the members began to build the trust and comfort level necessary with each other so that they all felt they belonged. I think that as I've worked with them and shown them different ways of thinking and looking at things, they have become motivated and excited to go along this journey with me. They have gained technology skills because they want to share, collaborate, and belong to the group. They have become "explorers" of the Tapped In landscape and are venturing into new areas independently.
I developed several goals for my mentees related to collaboration and sharing. The group has done a terrific job of initiating and accomplishing these goals. They are currently able to connect to each other for communication purposes using both email and our Tapped In group room. They have learned the skills of navigating the Tapped In campus and feel quite comfortable doing so. They have learned to rely not only on me, but on each other. As a group, they have been building an idea list of ways that itinerant teachers could use Tapped In as a community and support tool indicating that they are seeing the value in virtual collaboration for itinerant teachers. A big step forward for all members of the group was their ability to suspend judgment about what would or would not work. Bonding is evidenced by the desire of the group to attend the National Educational Computing Conference in Philadelphia this year as a group. Members are eagerly planning a day for our community to attend.
An exciting and new endeavor that we are undertaking is our "outreach to other counties." This is a very big step forward in the ability to "suspend judgment." I have worked very hard to mentor the group to think outside the box and not let past practices influence what we want to achieve. There was quite a bit of resistance in the beginning, but by continuing to move forward and continually trying to inspire them, I think I have been able to demonstrate the idea that, "We never know what we can do until we try." This is evidenced by our new phase of reaching out that many felt would never get off the ground because of various organizational culture issues. To date, they have been able to get permission to contact the other counties and we are now beginning to develop some ideas of ways to get things to move forward.
Challenges
One of the biggest challenges that we faced as a group was being able to meet face-to-face to build trust. Throughout this course, we were only able to arrange three face-to-face meetings. One of the things that I realized after the first meeting was that long before I would be able to mentor them in technology skills, change management, and collaboration, I would need to find a way to mentor them virtually. Developing ways to support, encourage, and mentor this group was a challenge for me. In general, I don't usually "reach out" to people through email and discussion threads. However, my experience in the OMET program provided me with the background and skills needed to step out of my comfort zone and assist my mentoring group.
The second challenge that the group, as a whole, faced was changing their paradigm. At some point in the past, the organization as a whole had been subjected to mis-management and unethical dealings. Many of the staff members were workers during that period of time. Consequently, the culture of the organization is still one that is recovering from mistrust of its administrators and workers. There are still many remnants of accountability measures that demonstrate this culture. Helping the group overcome that culture and to understand that each one of us can play a part in helping to change that culture has been quite challenging. I have modeled that little things make a difference, that we don't know what is possible unless we ask, and that questioning the status quo is okay. As I am reflecting upon these challenges I am realizing that little-by-little the group is beginning to look through new eyes. I think that we small success and change has helped to build the trust that is necessary for us to mentor each other. As the group has responded to actions that I have taken, I too have developed new eyes also. The group is helping me to learn about the culture of the organization, the lay of the land, and history of the organization. These are all necessary and essential pieces of information and knowledge that I need to better server and understand this diverse staff.
Next Steps
I will continue to work with the group and with other members of the division. I feel that the work that I have started with small group will ripple throughout time. I now have a group of people who have developed enough comfort with Tapped In that they can begin to "spread" the word. Since the staff members are geographically dispersed with limited contact with each other, it would be an excellent use of technology for staff to provide mentoring via Tapped In. While it is always preferable to mentor face-to-face, it is sometimes not possible. I will continue to help the group to think of possibilities and "what could be." As a group, we will begin to branch out and mentor other "job alike" professionals in nearby organizations. We expect that to occur sometime in July and the group members will be to work together to design this experience which will help them begin to take ownership of the project. Personally, I will continue to look for mentoring opportunities, both formal and informal. We expect a large influx of new teachers during the 2006-2007 school year and our experiences with this mentoring project will provide a foundation for developing a mentoring program to address that need.
Reflection
What makes a good mentor? We discussed lots of characteristics that help to make someone a good mentor. After spending the last three months exploring this topic, I think the one quality that makes someone a good mentor may just be "reflection." A good mentor is someone who is reflective. It is this quality that provides the springboard that allows you to help someone else-it is the foundation of the OMET program and isn't the OMET program built around the idea that the instructors are helping each of us to be a better "me!"--the idea that the OMET program brings out that which is already inside of us. In the process, the instructors receive the same benefit that we receive because the students help to bring out things that are already in them. This all happens because we take the time to stop and think. Not something that many people spend time doing anymore. Life is so much rush, rush, rush that we don't take the time to stop and "smell the roses." Therefore we miss many opportunities to "bring out what is already inside others." This idea also illustrates that a mentor isn't really trying to change the mentee or vice versa, the mentor is helping to develop the qualities, desires, and potential that already exists. As I finish this final reflection I realize that it has helped me to see this "big picture." As I move forward after OMET I need to look at people with new eyes, the eyes of seeing "what is already inside others waiting to be revealed."
Artifacts
