2011-12 EnvironMentors Mentor Training Template For Chapters
ENVIRONMENTAL MENTOR TRAINING WORKSHOP AGENDA Date, Time, Location, Duration 1. Sign-in Sheet 2. Mentors in My Life Worksheet 3. Mentoring Life Cycle PowerPoint 4. Mentor Roles & Responsibilities Handout 5. Student Roles & Responsibilities Handout 6. Inquiry-based Mentoring Handout 7. Mentoring 10 Essentials Handout 8. Workshop Survey Objectives As a result of this training, mentors will: 1. Understand the roles and responsibilities of mentors and mentees in the EM program 2. Learn about the mentoring life cycle that occurs in mentoring relationships 3. Become familiar with structured, inquiry-based mentoring Agenda Mentor Sign in Mix, Mingle, and Munch! Logistics Materials
Welcome and Introductions (10 minutes) Mentors introduce themselves and suggest one thing they are hoping to contribute to their student through their mentorship with EnvironMentors. Mentors in My Life Icebreaker (10 minutes) Mentors reflect on their own experiences with individuals who positively influenced their life choices and directions, see attached worksheet Building the Bond, Mentoring Life Cycle (10 minutes) Adapted from National Mentoring Resource Center at Education Northwest Q/A/Discussion EnvironMentors Mentoring 101 (5 minutes) Mentor’s Roles and Responsibilities Student’s Roles and Responsibilities Incorporating Methods of Inquiry into your Mentoring. See worksheet below Q/A/Discussion EnvironMentors Mentoring 10 Essentials (5 minutes) Whatever you do, don’t forget to bring along EnvironMentors Mentoring 10 Essentials. See worksheet below. Mentoring Scenarios (15 minutes) Partner work. See Student-Mentor Scenarios Below What’s Next (5 minutes) Other Chapter Business Workshop Survey (5 minutes) Handout workshop survey
References Taylor, Judy Strother (2003). Training New Mentees: A Manual for Preparing Youth in Mentoring Programs. Retrieved from: http://educationnorthwest.org/resource/244 YouthBuild USA (2010). Ready for Mentoring: A Guide for YouthBuild Students.
Additional Resources Education Northwest’s Mentor/Mentee Training and Relationship Support Resources http://educationnorthwest.org/resource/364
EnvironMentors Mentor Training Sign-In Sheet
FIRST NAME 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.
LAST NAME
EMAIL ADDRESS
Mentors in My Life Activity This exercise is designed for mentors to think about someone who had an impact in their life. In pairs, mentors will work through the following questions and come together to discuss those characteristics that are most important for a mentor to be. A MENTOR IN YOUR LIFE Please think of someone who represents a mentor in your life. This could be a teacher, family member, coach, fellow “life traveler�, anyone who helped you along your way. 1. Who was this person?
2. In what ways did he or she support you?
3. What are some of the characteristics you admired most in this person?
WHAT TYPE OF MENTOR DO YOU WANT TO BE 4. With these activities in mind, what are some of the things you would like to provide for your student through EnvironMentors?
5. What are some of the characteristics you would like to model for your student?
6. What are some of the things you would like to get back through your participation in the program?
Mentor Roles and Responsibilities . Meet with your student once-per-week, or at least three-times-per-month, at a consistent and time and location which is convenient to both of you. Stay in contact with your student via phone, e-mail, and the EnvironMentors Online Community between in-person meetings. Try to accompany your student to EM events such as skills workshops, field trips, and other scheduled events. Work closely with your student to elicit a research topic based on the student’s personal interests and concerns about the environment. Provide guidance and support for your students to develop the background research paper, design and conduct the experiment research, analyze the data, and develop conclusions for the project. Assist your student as he/she completes their final EnvironMentors project research paper and develop a project poster or display board for presentation at their EnvironMentors Chapter Fair, and any other presentation opportunities that may become available. Help your student fully prepare for their Chapter EnvironMentors Fair. In addition to these objective roles, we ask mentors serving in EnvironMentors to stay in step with the overall guiding principles of the program including: Inquiry-based student-driven learning. Mentors should strive to elicit their student’s thoughts and ideas about project topics and next steps in their research by continually asking their student what he or she thinks rather than directing the project. Skills Building. Builds academic skills including literature and experimental research skills, analytic and critical thinking skills, writing and presentation skills. Creative Thinking. Work to stimulate student’s own creative thinking processes and problem solving skills to develop a greater sense of self-confidence. College Pathway. Helps students consider various future college and career options with an emphasis on opening doors to environmentally-related college degree programs and professions.
Student Expectations While EnvironMentors has much to offer students, it is also a rigorous and demanding program. Make sure students fully understand the following expectations at the very beginning of the program season. EnvironMentors asks students to commit to the following: 1. Stay in contact with your mentor Obtain all your mentor’s contact information (home, work, cell phone numbers, and email) and share all your contact information with your mentor and coordinator. - Meet in person with your mentor for 1-2 hours once per week or at least 3 times a month. - If you cannot make a meeting, contact your mentor immediately to reschedule. If you cannot reach your mentor, call your chapter coordinator immediately. 2. Stay in contact with your chapter coordinator -
Provide your chapter coordinator with your class schedule, after-school and weekend schedule, work schedule, and a list of your extracurricular activities. - Attend all EnvironMentors workshops and school meetings. If you cannot attend a workshop, school meeting, or other event, contact your chapter coordinator immediately. 3. Work with your mentor to design an experimental research project based on an environmental issue that concerns you. -
-
Identify a research question. Conduct a literature review on your topic utilizing library and internet tools. Identify a local expert on your topic and conduct an expert interview. Develop a background research paper, with mentor assistance, incorporating what you learned in your literature review and expert interview. Develop a hypothesis based on your background research and design an experiment to test it. Write a description of your experimental methods and materials. Collect data for at least 3 experimental trials. Organize, analyze and present your data visually with tables, charts and graphs. Write a discussion and conclusion in which you discuss the results of your experiment and draw a conclusion about what your data mean. Write a complete research paper using the elements you completed throughout your project.
4. Work with your mentor to communicate what you have learned -
Design and create a project display board or poster. Develop a lesson plan based on your project and present it to an elementary school class. Present your project at your Chapter Fair. Participate in your Chapter Awards Ceremony and possibly the National Competition.
EnvironMentors Mentoring Incorporating Methods of Inquiry Inquiry-based Learning Emphasizes the process of guiding students to think through a subject themselves, build on what they already know, and come up with a deeper understanding of the concepts and problems of the subject. Your job as an EnvironMentor is to guide your student through the following question process: (1) What do I know?
(2) What questions do I have?
(3) How do I find out?
(4) What did I learn?
1. What do I know? Stage in the EnvironMentors Program: Project Topic Selection Goal: Get students to connect their existing interests to the environment, and choose a primary interest area.
Ask open-ended questions to identify your students’ interests, whether or not they have to do with the environment.
Ask probing questions that help your student relate his or her interests to the environment. For example, if student’s primary interest is shopping, ask questions that encourage them to consider where the materials come from, how they are made and transported, etc. Your goal is to encourage students begin asking their own questions about how their personal interests relate to the environment.
Do the Mind Mapping Activity found in the Student Manual at least three times. First, to get your student’s ideas on paper; second, to further expand on their interests; and a third time, to finally focus in on his or her primary interest and project topic.
2. What questions do I have? Stage in the EnvironMentors Program: Literature Review and Expert Interviews Goal: Help your student generate many questions, and understand what other researchers have already asked.
Introduce your student to your university library(s) and help them make use of loans and other library research functions.
Help your student develop his or her interview questions.
Help your students discover what questions have already been thoroughly answered, and what questions still remain.
3. How do I find out? Stage in the EnvironMentors Program: Experimental Design Goal: Guide your student through the process of designing a scientific experiment to answer their question.
Help your student complete the Experimental Methods Worksheet in the Student Manual to think critically about: what data he/she will need to collect in order to answer his/her research question, how he/she will collect it, how many trials he/she will collect, and what materials he/she will need to conduct this experiment.
4. What did I Learn? Stage in the EnvironMentors Program: Communicating Results Goal: Help your student reflect on his/her research findings and be able to clearly communicate them to multiple audiences.
Writing his/her research paper and creating a project poster will help your student reflect on his/her research findings.
Encourage your student to derive his/her conclusions based on both his/her Literature Review and Experimental Research.
Help your student understand what different audiences might want to hear. How will speaking to elementary school students be different from speaking to adults at a chapter fair?
Practice presentation skills with your student, and ask your student one of the fundamental questions he/she will be asked by judges at their Chapter Fair (and National Fair if they are selected to go).
Continuing the Inquiry Cycle What would he/she next if they had the opportunity to do so. What new questions has his/her research produced?
EnvironMentors Scenarios Activity Print out copies of the mentoring scenarios below. Have mentors work in pairs through the activity by reading each scenario and coming up with an appropriate response to each mentoring challenge. Regroup together and review responses. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Dear EnvironMentors Guru, I have been working with a student for the past three months. The first two months were great and we picked up a good momentum for planning our project. However after winter vacation my student fell off the grid. I made several attempts to contact my student via telephone and e-mail but he won’t respond. Our project design requires a long experimental period and we need to start soon or else we wont get our findings on time. I really like my student and I don’t want to give up on him, what should I do? Please Help! Dr. U.N. Answered ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Dear EnvironMentors Guru, I have not heard from my student in a while. I am a very busy EPA Scientist and I can only meet with my student once a month. I had to reschedule one meeting and then she needed to reschedule, and we never wound up meeting. That was two months ago, and I haven’t heard from her since. My time is valuable and usually if someone needs to reschedule, they contact me when they have a new time to meet. Should I just assume that my student does not have time to meet? Sincerely, Dr. B. Izzy
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Dear Dr. B. Izzy, I understand that you have many demands on your time, but in signing up to be a mentor you pledged to give 1-2 hours a week, at least three weeks a month to be a mentor to a student. It seems to me that you haven’t been quite keeping up your end of the bargain, so why should your student? You need to keep in mind that you are dealing with a child, not an adult professional. Many of the students may not come from very reliable homes and you are not being an effective mentor by being yet another adult in their life that is too busy for them. As a mentor you need to show her that you are there for her, not as a favor or obligation, but because you want to help her. I think you should contact her, apologize for your absence and reschedule a meeting time soon to resume your project. But this time, make sure to keep your appointment, show up on time, focus on her, and make sure to set up a meeting for the next week. Good luck and remember who you are dealing with. Sincerely, The EnvironMentors Guru
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Dear EnvironMentors Guru, I am doing this mentoring as part of a community service club at my university and my hours are tracked to meet a quota, so I always try to meet with my student once a week. However the past few weeks I have been going to our designated spot at hour mutually agreed upon time, and my student isn’t there! The first time he didn’t show, I called him; he didn’t call back; I waited 45 minutes and then left. Two days later he called me back and told me to he had forgotten. But the next week the same thing happened; once again he forgot. So the next week I called him the day before to remind him of the meeting, he said he would be there, and lo-and-behold he wasn’t. What should I do? Key Pitt Green -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Dear EnvironMentors Guru, I am a Professor who teaches Estuarine Science at Seaside University and I specialize in Chesapeake Bay Mollusks, but I have a broad range of aquatic ecosystem knowledge. In the beginning of the year we went on some great trips to the Chesapeake Bay and other aquatic ecosystems and my student seemed really interested in them. I came up with a bunch of really great ideas for research projects relating to the trips we went on and what I thought he was interested in. However when it came time to picking a project topic my student didn’t like any of my ideas. I kept suggesting alternatives, but he just kept shooting them down. He finally decided that he wanted to do a project on Air Pollution and Asthma- something that I have absolutely NO interest in. I thought the point of this mentorship was for me to share my knowledge with him, but how am I supposed to do that when my skill set and interest do not cover his project topic. Should I switch students? Professor N.O. Wittall
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear EnvironMentors Guru, My student and I have been tossing around topic ideas for the past few weeks and she recently decided on a topic that I know absolutely nothing about! I tried suggesting a compromise bridging her topic and a topic of mine together, that it couldn’t logistically work out and she seemed less than interested. I have a really good relationship with her, but how am I supposed to help her when I don’t know the first thing about her topic? Please help! Gota B. Green -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EnvironMentors Mentor Training Evaluation
∗
Date: 1. What did you find to be most useful in this workshop?
2. What did you find to be least useful? 3. Was there anything you felt was missing from this session or anything you would have liked to know more about?
4. In what other ways could we improve this session?
5. Please rate the following: Poor
Average 3
Effectiveness of trainer
1
2
Training Room
1
2
3
4
5
Training Content
1
2
3
4
5
Training Activities
1
2
3
4
5
Training Materials
1
2
3
4
5
Overall Rating
1
2
3
4
5
∗
4
Excellent 5
Mentor Training Evaluation form adapted from Training New Mentors: Effective Strategies for Providing Quality Youth Mentoring in Schools and Communities (2007). Published by The Hamilton Fish Institute on School and Community Violence and The National Mentoring Center at Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. Full document can be found at: http://educationnorthwest.org/webfm_send/164