Thursday night’s ONedMentors show was the second in a series of ONedMentors Connect shows. Last week, we launched ONedMentors Connect, a three phase project that will evolve over the next year. A team from voicEd Radio, in partnership with the Digital Human Library (dHL) has created a way for teachers to find mentors. Our long term goal is to create a space where all educators can self direct their learning by finding mentors to help them with specific or general aspects of their teaching role and experience. This Pilot Project phase is our first step on this expedition.
The Pilot Project involves 5 first and second year teachers. They were selected because they were already connected educators and people who were comfortable with sharing their learning journeys. On our launch episode https://soundcloud.com/voiced-radio/onedmentors-pilot-project-1-august-23, we reviewed the process of locating and determining a mentor that can bets meet the individualized need of each teacher. The mentors were tasked to register on the Digital Human Library and create profile that would inform and invite someone to connect with them. create The mentees were instructed on how to go on the Digital Human Library and go through the catalogue of ONedMentors to find a match. Leigh created this video to guide them:
On this episode of ONedMentors Connect on the ONedMentors show, the mentees shared the experience of choosing a mentor. We discussed some of the criteria used to select a person to support their professional learning and growth and the mentors will be working with mentees for the next 3 months. The goal of this collaborative inquiry is not just to follow the mentorship experience of these 5 pairs but to evolve an offering of self-directed professional learning opportunity by developing a deep understanding of the different ways that teachers can be supported by using the Digital Human Library as a source for locating and connecting with a mentor for a specific or general exchange.
Over the week, Sarah Lalonde, an important voice on voicEd Radio and pilot mentee, reached out and asked my thoughts on a mentor-posal. Her idea was a prom-posal-like approach to asking the person who she selected among the ONedMentors Connect mentors to be her mentor. She was kind of enough to wait to share this until the show to share her creativity, but it started a fantastic ripple of mentor-posals that were flooding Twitter and adding so much fun to this stage of the project. Here are the ONedMentors Connect teams:
We had sent a survey to the mentors and mentees to gauge some aspects of this experience. Among the questions, the mentees were asked about the qualities they would look for in selecting a mentor. The answers varied, but were all important considerations: personal qualities, teachable subjects, experiences, someone who could offer perspective and an open but critical lens. One mentee wrote, “Someone who I could picture working alongside with.” While these answers got me wondering about other possible criteria for choosing a mentor, they reinforced the vision of self-directed mentorship as each individual has different needs and unique things to bring to the exchange, so the criteria is, ultimately, individual.
Through the survey, the mentees also shared what they were hoping to gain from their ONedMentors Connect experience. Among the varied response, the mentees noted:
a sounding board
a sound voice
a sound perspective in times where I am feeling high and low in my first year of teaching
someone with whom I can build a relationship of trust
someone to confide in confide in
someone to give their advice to help me grow
support to help overcome first year obstacles before becoming discouraged or frustrated.
someone to help me look at my “journey in a different light.”
tell me about their experiences so I can learn from what they've done
someone who has lived experiences to share
“...to be able to share my experiences, successes and challenges with an individual who is outside of my school board district so that they can provide me with new ways of addressing/viewing situations.”
As an inquiry, it will be interesting to see if the mentees achieve what they set out to, if their goals change, if their mentorship experience was what they had hoped, and how the mentorship experience supported their foray into the education profession. We will hear back from the mentors and mentees in three months.
The mentors were also asked to complete a survey before this episode. Among the options listed for why they chose to be an ONedMentors Connect mentor, not one of them answered that it was to “share their expertise.” Almost 90% of 10 respondents chose the option: “To support teacher candidates, new and seasoned teachers in their practice.” Another key factor in all of the responses were the qualities of a mentor. Overwhelmingly, people noted open-mindedness as key to any mentee, and just being part of the pilot is an indicator that our five have the traits to be effective mentees. While the one challenge that many agreed with was time, we know that this dedicated pilot group have wanted to be here and shared their willingness to make the time because of what I think we all believe in possible with this offering.
The mentors were also surveyed about what they believe the benefits of mentorship to be for educators. Here are some of their responses:
one on one time for advice, reflection & collaboration
problem solve with an experienced educator
brainstorm with/bounce ideas off someone out of the situation
know someone has got your back
any perspective that helps clarify, expand, and challenge ‘in silo’ thinking is good
one-on-one connections offer bespoke learning experiences
a safe space to share and bounce ideas
accountability
an excellent way to reflect on practices.
to have someone help you with your process
sounding board
confidant
critical friend can make the journey easier and more rewarding
having a mentor helps you stay on track
Everyone of the mentors perceive a mentorship relationship to be of benefit. We also assert that there is an implied reciprocity in a an ONedMentors Connect partnership because teachers are choosing their own mentors, flattening the possible hierarchy of these relationships when imposed or evaluative. Helene Cormier, one of our ONedMentors Connect mentors and a regular panelist on ONedMentors, stated on last week’s show that mentorship relationship has three layers: mentor to mentee, mentee to mentee and mentor to mentor. These are relationships we want to explore and somewhere we believe everyone learns something, with autonomy at its core.
Our critical friends shared some of the their thoughts on selecting a mentor. Mark Carbone said that you need to ask yourself the questions of what you need to be learning so that you can determine the best person from whom to learn this and “help you along that path.” He added, “The more you know what you need to learn...with good descriptive information [on the mentor profiles] in the Digital Human Library, it’s easier for you to find potential people to work with.” Helen Dewaard shared that an effective mentorship means“...finding someone who will push your passion...someone who can pick you up at the end of some for those dramatic falls that we all have as educators.” Leigh responded to both Helen and Mark’s perspectives adding that we need to explore how people can develop the metacognition and reflective skills to know where they want or need to learn in order to be able to drive their personalised professional learning opportunities. Choosing a mentor would require a sense of direction from the mentee.
Leigh Cassell, my partner in developing this ONedMentors Connect inquiry and a brilliant educational innovator, and I met in person for the first time at the Learning Forward Ontario Conference in Stratford on Monday. As I shared in my previous post on this topic, from the time I first envisioned expanding the ONedMentors show growing into a hub for fostering mentorships in education, I dreamed to partner with Leigh and her Digital Human Library. When she and I clarified what was possible, we met with Derek and Stephen and began developing what would become this three phase inquiry in the hopes of learning and evolving ONedMentors Connect into something that helps cultivate relationships in education to build capacity. Meeting Leigh in person after 7 months of planning was like the icing on the cake of a great day of learning, and we had a sense of this shared purpose that further bonded us. Hearing Jenni Donohoo’s keynote, especially in that context, was truly mind-blowing.
Jenni Donhoo, PhD, has been a change agent, author and professional learning leader for 15 years. She is the past president of Learning Forward Ontario, and she is presently on secondment to the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Branch in the Ontario Ministry of Education. I first came to know her work as a guiding force behind my collaborative inquiry for part 1 of the principal’s course as her book, Collaborative Inquiry for Educators, is a suggested text. Jenni’s inspiring presentation on collective efficacy related very well to our ONedMentors Connect inquiry. She defined collective efficacy which is also the title of her 2016 book, as, “A shared sense on combined ability to impact change.” That was the precise thinking I was having about this ONedMentors Connect inquiry. I had no doubt that this team of educators that we were lucky enough to gather (referring back to my Avengers allusion from my first post on this ) could accomplish our goals. Jenni said that, “Goals help us realized mastery, mobilize effort, develop strategies and increase persistence.” Our goals are clear.
These images of Jenni's books is from the Corwin website
The goal of the ONedMentors Connect Project is to support and empower teachers through self-directed 1:1 mentorships designed to help them effectively reach and teach their learners and to help personalize professional development. We are exploring how we can optimize a digital space for mentors and mentees to connect and develop a reciprocal relationship that builds capacity for teacher learning and development. This has been made possible through the partnership of voicEd Radio and the Digital Human Library (dHL). Through the pilot, we are filtering our learning and reflecting through live conversations on three ONedMentors episodes, to begin. Our next ONedMentors Connect episode will be on November 15th when we will catch up with our mentors, mentees and critical friends, share the experience and learning that the mentees have tracked over three months and begin to unpack what we’ve learned in order to get ready for Phase 2 - when we invite a larger cohort from pre service to new and seasoned educators to try out ONedMentors Connect and see what else we can learn from the growing team. If you want to be part of this second phase beginning in January, as a mentor or mentee, please reach out through the dHL before December 15th.
Here are two of the awesome mentor-posals: