Definition

Characteristics of Mentorship

Responsibilities

Tips and Tools

A mentor helps motivate the student

Motivation is the ability to figure out how to make a student want to do something.  As instructors, you try to figure out how to convey to the student what's in it for them.  Why should they be interested in this?  What will they get out of it?  In other words, how can we help the learner understand the relevancy of what he/she is doing?  To do that we need to:

• Get the student's attention
• Make the information relevant
• Reinforce student confidence
• Provide a satisfactory learning experience.

Attention

• Send an e-mail to your students or post an announcement or news article in ANGEL that contains an interesting fact related to the next class lecture. 

• Using the Links tool under the "In Touch" tab in ANGEL, provide a URL referral that has appealing audio or video related to your subject matter.

• Provide an interesting prompt that students can discuss on the message board in ANGEL, or pose an interesting "poll" question.

• Add variety to your class by providing a guest speaker, animations, slide shows, demos, video clips, and/or music available via the Web. All of these resources can be added to the content of your course in ANGEL.

• Let students share their assignment results by posting them on a message board in ANGEL. Students can attachment files to their comments on the message board as well.

• Using e-mail or by posting the pages as files under the "Lessons" tab in your ANGEL course, provide examples of student work.

• Use information gleaned from student background and interest data to shape and focus your content and teaching strategies.  Provide examples that are relevant to the students--place information within their frame of context. 

• Set up teams in your ANGEL course, or use e-mail to supply a designated group of students with a class discussion topic or question.  These students will be responsible for initiating and leading class discussions.  Your level of student guidance for these discussions can change as the semester progresses.

• Provide personal or group recognition to student/s via e-mail or post it on a course message board.  This feedback can be related to comments during class discussions, assignments, or exams.  

Provide a Satisfactory Learning Experience

• Provide a learning space where students can apply the concepts and skills they recently learned. For example, Tom Berner teaches journalistic editing.  In his course, he provides on-line editing exercises to students that allow students to recognize and correct errors. 

• Like you would in the classroom, provide students with clearly stated objectives and rubrics for assignments.  Post this information in your course syllabus and "Lessons" tab content on ANGEL for easy student access.