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The Teaching and Learning Community |
The Teaching and Learning Community Faculty come to an teaching institution with varying levels of experience and needs. It is important to provide a number of activities and resources that take these differences into consideration and leave no faculty isolated. A good mentoring program should strive to create a true community of teaching and learning for its participants. Good mentoring should be larger than one-on-one pairings:
Model
Resources
Although some of the following resources were created for use with faculty at El Paso Community College, they can serve as models for potential projects within your own mentoring program. The Mind Co-op This is the EPCC one-to-one mentoring model designed to promote a successful mentoring experience by clarifying what both partners want from their relationship and by helping them avoid some common mentoring pitfalls. EPCC Mentoring Website This website provides all the information about the EPCC Mentoring Program including handbooks and resources. On the first page you'll notice the mission and vision statements prominently displayed. Consider writing mission and vision statements for the mentoring initiative at your institution using these as a starting point: Mission Statement:
Ask a Mentor
The mission of the Mentoring Program is to provide a support network for new faculty as they begin their teaching careers. Vision Statement: The vision of the Mentoring Program is to increase retention of new fulltime and adjunct faculty, provide activities that encourage collegiality among all faculty and foster a more professional and nurturing teaching environment. Mentoring can be provided on-line via email or through some type of threaded discussion area. Extended Seminars and Online Courses In addition to, or in place of, an extended mentoring program, some new faculty orientation programs provide 1- 2 day intensive training sessions for new and part-time faculty. Providing ongoing professional development is always a good idea. Brown Bag Lunches Many universities and colleges provide weekly or monthly open forum question and answer sessions or more structured presentations during lunch or breakfast hours. Resources on Faculty Mentoring from the University of Michigan's Center for Research on Learning and Teaching. This site offers links to websites and articles about other mentoring programs, mentoring specific groups, discipline-specific mentoring, developing and assessing mentoring programs, and much more. Passages: A Structured Mentoring Program for Faculty at Emory The Passages program is designed to help new faculty set priorities, develop a network of advisors, increase their visibility within the institution and related professional communities and understand the institutional culture. Austin Community College All new ACC faculty, both full-time and adjunct, must be assigned a mentor during their first semester. The program description includes helpful forms for downloading, such as the Mentor Checklist, the Optional Mentee Evaluation, and the Teaching Observation Checklist.
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