Thank you for volunteering to help
mentor students in an online learning environment!
Because this mentoring impacts
students in tangible and intangible ways, it is important that we have some
guidelines for you and outline our expectations regarding your participation.
Guidelines
1. Recognize that is a
"personal" connection to a particular child or children. These students will be as disappointed by
your lack of visiting them virtually as they would be if you had an appointment
to meet them somewhere and never show up.
2. It is important to encourage the
students to work hard and improve. They
need to know there is an audience for their work and that you are closely
reading their documents. We would like
you to encourage them to expand their ideas, give more details, and express
their thoughts and opinions. Unless it
greatly impacts your interactions, leave major grammar and punctuation
corrections to the teacher.
3. If appropriate, you may do the
same work they are doing. For instance,
if they are writing poetry, perhaps you want to share one of yours. If you are not comfortable with this idea,
you are not required to do this as part of your mentoring experience.
4. Support the student in the
challenge to meet the teacher's expectations.
If they are asked to do 3 written assignments, gently ask about the work
and encourage them to meet their deadlines.
5.
Be positive, supportive, responsive and professional. Remember that you are a member of a closed
Educational Community. Teachers and
students will be able to read your comments throughout the learning
process. Be certain your language and
interactions remain appropriate for children.
Expectations.
Within the Collaboratory, you have
several ways to "connect" with your students.
1. Please check at least 3 times per
week to see if there are new documents.
2. Place at least 1 comment on the
document during a week.
3. Do not let more than 4 days go
between a completed document and your comment in response.
4. Follow the teacher's lead or
instructions to mentors to support the work the teacher is doing in the
classroom. This might include a format
for looking at work, or it might mean merely following the lead from the
students. Your work should support the
process, not create or interfere with the teacher's plans.
5. If you will unable to get to the
Collaboratory for some reason for an extended period of time, please notify the
teacher and let the teacher address the student needs while you are
unavailable.
Depending on how often they are using
computers, the number and quality of the documents per week may vary.
If there is no work or little work
done, you might want to connect via a "message" in the Collaboratory
to keep the relationship moving forward.
You might send messages as a way to connect informally with the student,
as well. You should probably send a
copy of the message to yourself so you have a record of it.
** Remember you have the option of
the Conference Chat room for synchronous meetings. You can arrange to be there at a convenient time.