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Mentoring Teachers Programs ? Improved Professional Competence and Educational Reform

October 6th, 2010
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So what is Mentoring really all about? The following report includes some fascinating information about Mentoring–info you can use, not just the old stuff they used to tell you.

Many schools in the US have formalized the process of mentoring novice teachers as their way of inducting the new teacher into the teaching profession. They run Mentoring Teachers Programs, which enable a newbie to adjust to the new teaching career through the assistance of a veteran teacher. In these programs, the veteran teacher, the mentor, coaches the new teacher on several areas in teaching such as how to prepare lesson plans and execute them, how to handle students of different ages and characteristics, how to teach more effectively in different kinds of settings, how to resolve classroom conflicts and the like.

Benefits to the New Teacher

The program leads not only to improved teaching skills but also to increased job satisfaction on the part of the new teacher. According to Evenson in his book on mentoring teachers, the new teacher benefits in three ways. First, the program allows the new teacher to easily adapt with the school environment. Aside from helping the new teacher get acquainted with the school’s staff and facilities, the mentor also teaches him how to observe and cope with the school’s rules and regulations.

Second, the program allows the teacher to establish teaching competence. This is achieved as the mentor provides the new teacher with opportunities to observe, assess, and practice his and other teachers’ teaching. The process encourages feedback from and constant communication with the mentor.

Lastly, the program introduces the teacher to teaching as a continuously developing and a life-long profession. If the new teacher feels that he gets as much support as he can from colleagues and the school administration, he will likely stay in this profession and would gladly make himself available as well for future teachers who would need his assistance.

Other Benefits of the Program

Those of you not familiar with the latest on Mentoring now have at least a basic understanding. But there’s more to come.

The benefits of mentoring programs are far reaching. It is not only the new teachers that benefit from the program but all the participants in the program including the mentor, the student and the school as a whole as well. Thus, mentoring programs are seen not just as a form of assistance to the new teacher but as a vehicle for the improvement of the school’s whole educational system.

For the mentor, the program serves as another opportunity to share his wealth of experiences, knowledge and skills. Much of these skills and knowledge are not found in books or reference materials. They are accumulated through time through extensive training and professional practice. Without the mentoring programs, these experiences, knowledge and skills gained and acquired through time may gradually fade away.

In a way, the mentor also improves himself as a teacher in the process of mentoring. He does this as he reexamines his professional experiences inside and outside the classroom and as he provides tips and guidelines to the new teacher.

Moreover, the mentoring program provides him with an added source of income as mentors are usually compensated for the extra services they render.

Students are directly and indirectly benefited with this kind of program as their new teachers gain more teaching skills and knowledge, which are imparted to them. Ultimately, the students learn more things and enjoy their classes more when the teacher is prepared and well versed with the topics he or she is discussing.

A research conducted by Southwest Educational Development Laboratory to study the mentoring programs in Texas reveals that many districts see mentoring teachers programs also as a vital retention strategy. The study recognizes that the attrition of new teachers is among the cause of shortages of teachers in some schools.

That’s how things stand right now. Keep in mind that any subject can change over time, so be sure you keep up with the latest news.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his top ranked GVO affiliate site: GVO

Mentoring

Best Practices in Mentoring

September 29th, 2010
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The following article lists some simple, informative tips that will help you have a better experience with Mentoring.

What is mentoring? Mentoring pertains to the development of rapport involving a more knowledgeable mentor and a less knowledgeable protégé or mentee. A protégé or a mentee is a person who is guided, supported and protected from an experienced mentor. A mentor is the one who boosts the career of a protégé or a mentee.

What is best practice? Best practice is an organizational idea which states that there is a standard activity, process, method, technique, reward or incentive that is more effectual in accomplishing a specific result. The idea is that a desired result is delivered with few or no unexpected complications and/or problems. Best practices is also described as one of the most effective and efficient way in carrying out a task, based on tried and tested procedures.

Therefore, best practices in mentoring involve the development of an equally beneficial correlation that improves the proficient intelligence of the mentor and the protégé or the mentee. A good mentor usually projects expertness, candidness, affability, and communication skills. Enthusiastic protégés or mentees have a tendency to express desire for knowledge, utmost discipline and self-respect.

A Good Mentor

A good mentor is a mentor who (is):

? Listens well and treats the conversation with the mentee as confidential.
? Determines what is important to a mentee and explore their ambitions, propensities and skills.
? Knows the importance of the learning process by creating a candid and open relationship to promote confidence and trust.
? Accepts the fact that in some cases a mentee may need to seek other sources of assistance and help.
? Appropriately trained and has vast knowledge in mentoring.
? Should have a professional approach in mentor-mentee relationship.
? Refrain from mentoring those who are directly reporting to them, no matter how professional the relationship is, this will avoid other colleagues to think that the mentor may influence some matters pertaining to the issues concerning the mentee’s decision and position.

A Good Mentee

A good mentee is a mentee who (is):

Is everything making sense so far? If not, I’m sure that with just a little more reading, all the facts will fall into place.

? Very enthusiastic to be taught and trained and is liberated to new ideas or concepts.
? A team-player who can interact well with other people.
? A risk taker who is not afraid to go beyond the boundaries of safety and venture into uncertainties to learn.
? Patient enough to realize that an ambition in life cannot be acquired overnight.
? A positive attitude, even in the midst of a crisis.
? Demonstrates inventiveness and resourcefulness in any task assigned.
? Accepts feedback, negative or positive, about behavior and skills, with an intention to improve and learn from it.

When is a Mentor-Mentee Relationship Good?

A good mentor-mentee relationship is not just gauged by the personality of each that they bring into the relationship, more significantly, the occurrence of proper interaction and behavior is needed all throughout the process. What the mentor accomplishes with the mentee, and how eager the mentee responds and receives it, is what matters most in such a relationship.

A good mentor-mentee relationship cultivates and successfully carries out the following:

? Career Roles:

1. A mentor that introduces new opportunities to the mentee, which the latter believes in.
2. A mentor that coaches and sponsors a mentee, which the latter gratefully accepts.
3. A mentor that protects and challenges a mentee, which the latter understands as part of the relationship.

? Psychological Roles:

1. A mentor who is a role-model, which the mentee looks up to.
2. A mentor who counsels, which the mentee receives wholeheartedly.
3. A mentor who befriend a mentee, but is still focus enough to achieve the goals of the relationship.
4. A mentor and a mentee who accept and confirm each others ideas.

Within this representation, a mentor serves as a leader, a teacher that encourages thinking abilities, an advocate of realistic principles, an overseer, and an analyst. A mentee on the other hand is a student who is willing to be taught and is ready to embark on a journey towards an absolute learning experience.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his top ranked GVO affiliate site: GVO

Mentoring

The Proper Way of Mentoring Special Educators

September 27th, 2010
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There’s a shortage of special educators these days. Special education teachers are badly needed by almost all of school districts today. They are wanted in 98% of all the educational institutions of the U.S. And over the next years, more than a million new special educators are required.

Special educators leave their jobs a lot faster than regular teachers. This is because of the tasks that are placed on their backs. Special educators are tasked to manage IEPs, give alternative assessments, become paraprofessionals, use assisting technologies, comply with complex legislation, and write all the paperwork. All of these they have to do, on top of the emotional and physical toll of doing individualized instruction.

The effective way of mentoring special educators play a special role in their development and preservation. To mentor special education teachers, the following should be done:

1. Effective identification, recruitment, and selection of mentors.
There may be a handful of special education teachers. But only a few of them are really up to the task. Before training a teacher to be special education teachers, they have to be psychologically, physically, and emotionally up to the task.

2. Provide adequate action planning
With the many tasks facing a special educator face, mentors should take part in the action planning process in everyway they can. Mentors should be always available for the teacher could confer with them. Mentors should take part of the special educator’s task every time they can.

Truthfully, the only difference between you and Mentoring experts is time. If you’ll invest a little more time in reading, you’ll be that much nearer to expert status when it comes to Mentoring.

3. Continuous evaluation
The evaluation of special educators should be continuous. The regular evaluation of special education teacher is going to be helpful in determining whether or not the skills and abilities of the teachers are up to the present challenges of their job. Should teachers fall short, they can easily update their knowledge through retraining.

4. Address diminishing support
Diminishing support for special educators is real. Expect this to happen even if you have tried hard to provide the support special educators need. Whenever the support of your team to special teachers is failing, address it with a special meeting to solve the immediate problems the teacher encounter at hand.

5. Check instances of isolation and burnout
The psychological and emotional toll of teaching special education is high. Teachers get drained out most easily if they feel isolation from their peers and experience burnout with their work. Try to check the level of isolation and burnout teachers have. Solve it by offering out of town team building activities, regular brainstorming and interaction with colleagues.

6. Conduct regular counseling with teachers
Teachers should be subjected to regular counseling sessions, whether they need it or not. This would help teachers a lot, because they could share their stories, experiences, frustrations, and successes with a person that could really help. Regular sessions would help teachers with their day-to-day activities.

7. Facilitate workshops and trainings
Special educators need to update their knowledge through trainings and workshops. These activities are very important because it allows them to learn more techniques that could help them a lot in their daily jobs. Make sure that the workshops and trainings made for teachers are as lively and as fun as it should.

These are the things can do to properly mentor special education teachers so that they won’t give up their jobs easily. These professionals are very important in the society. Their roles are indispensable so they have to be given the proper attention they need.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his top ranked GVO affiliate site: GVO

Mentoring

Preparing a Proposal for a Teacher Mentoring Program

September 22nd, 2010
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An established teacher mentoring program is an important asset for any educational institution. It helps develop talent, maintain a school’s quality standards, ensure its compliance to state or even national benchmarks and provide high quality standards of teaching for students.

It’s also a way to help improve the quality of teacher personnel and assist new teachers in getting assimilated into the environment. This is why preparing a proposal for a teacher mentoring program should be a careful and well thought-of process, something that must be carefully deliberated and designed in order to produce a plan that will be a perfect fit for the institution.

There are several important steps and considerations to keep in mind when designing a proposal for a teacher mentoring program. These include:

Establishing the goals and purposes of the school
Before writing a proposal for a mentorship program, it is important that the goals and purposes of the school is understood and considered. Ultimately, this is the benchmark upon which the efficacy of the program will be assessed. Determine what the organization wishes to achieve through the mentorship program and how the program will fit the image, values and philosophies set by the school.

Determining the needs of the organization
In every organization, there are areas where it can show strengths and weaknesses. If the goal of the organization is to close the gap between its weaknesses and the current standards, it will be a lot easier to establish what the organization needs and design a more effective and successful teacher mentoring program.

Once you begin to move beyond basic background information, you begin to realize that there’s more to Mentoring than you may have first thought.

A mentoring program also has to fit the specific requirements of the participants. Elementary level teachers, for example, may have different needs than high school level or collegiate level teachers.

Assessing the available resources for mentorship
The next step to preparing a proposal for a mentoring program is to find out what kind of resources the school has that may be used with the program. Staff specialization, number of teachers or personnel that can assist or participate in the program, materials, funding and even external resources that may have to be tapped should be considered.

For many organizations, including schools, the use of resources can be a touchy subject, particularly if it involves budget. Establishing the cost and type of requirements that may be involved in a mentoring program initially will help school administrators to decide whether or not the program is feasible.

Establishing the responsibility and accountability of the program
It is important to establish which department will be responsible for the implementation and assessment of the program. This department will ensure that correct practices are enforced and that certain standards are met. If necessary, creating an audit team might also be considered.

Establishing the benefits and creating quality perimeters
The benefits of the program should be enumerated in order to show the administrators that it is necessary and useful to the school. The proposal should also include the standards for checking the validity, relevance and efficacy of the mentoring program. These standards should be quantifiable to allow for easy measurement and evaluation.

Preparing the proposal
The proposal is a formal presentation of the mentorship program and as such, should follow certain guidelines. The proposal must be well-written and informative, establishing the facts about the program immediately. This will allow the administrators to see whether or not the program will be useful for the school. The success of the proposal and ultimately, the teacher mentoring program will depend on how well it is designed and accepted by school administrators.

Is there really any information about Mentoring that is nonessential? We all see things from different angles, so something relatively insignificant to one may be crucial to another.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his top ranked GVO affiliate site: GVO

Mentoring

Learnings from Mentoring Quotes

September 18th, 2010
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“Mentoring”, this Greek term has been used in countless ways so you can expect that there are various wise mentoring quotes that abound. But it all refers to the same concept, giving guidance and advice to another person. The term “mentoring” actually comes from the Greek word that means enduring. This is a committed relationship between a youth and an adult wherein the adult has the patience to teach the youth whatever he knows from life. It is the adult’s responsibility to provide support, assistance, and guidance as the younger one faces new challenges and problems everyday. Mentors usually take the role of the parents when the parent is busy or unavailable during the critical stages of a person’s life.

There are basically two types of mentoring; the first is natural mentoring and the second is planned mentoring. Natural mentoring can come from everyday situations wherein anyone can be your mentor. You can learn through collegiality, through friendship, through teaching, or through counseling. On the other hand, planned mentoring comes from a structured program wherein the mentor and the mentee are chosen from a list and matched through a formal procedure.

Currently, mentoring is becoming increasingly popular in the workforce as well as for personal development. This is partly due to various testimonials among people who have tried it and derived a lot of advantages from the mentoring program. But how does mentoring exactly work? Well, if you wan to look into the formal mentoring programs, you should be aware that your mentor will be chosen by an authority figure through interviews, comparative index outlook, and by looking at their personal profiles.

If you base what you do on inaccurate information, you might be unpleasantly surprised by the consequences. Make sure you get the whole Mentoring story from informed sources.

Of course, in most cases, the mentor and the mentee would need to get acquainted first before the mentoring program can start. Mentors are needed because they can be a positive influence on the mentee who is learning from them. As Gandhi once said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” Mentors can be a force of change and they can influence a lot of people, including you, by becoming a respected authority figure.

Ralph Waldo Emerson stated that, “You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.” And indeed, mentors are doing kindness when they take on the responsibility of helping other people learn from their experiences. Through this, they can give back to society and make career growth, personal development, or intellectual achievement possible for the person they are mentoring.

As you can observe, mentoring is helpful for educational purposes wherein the mentor will help the mentee improve their overall academic achievement. Likewise, mentoring is also very helpful in the workplace because mentors can provide the necessary insights and perspectives on what a person should do to achieve his goals. Meanwhile, having a mentor would also be a very helpful option in your personal development because the mentor can help you during tough personal and social stress and offer guidance just when you need it the most.

A very nice quote from an unknown author read, “A lot of people have gone further than they thought they could because someone else thought they could.” The mentor does just that, they believe that their mentees can do it. This, in itself, is usually encouragement enough for the mentee to do their best to succeed in life.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his top ranked GVO affiliate site: GVO

Mentoring

Mentoring: A Glue that Binds African Traditions

September 18th, 2010
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The following paragraphs summarize the work of Mentoring experts who are completely familiar with all the aspects of Mentoring. Heed their advice to avoid any Mentoring surprises.

When the subject of conversation turns to rich culture and traditions, Africa would definitely be a part of that discussion. And with the voyage of Africans to the Great Americas, these people have endured so much?poverty, discrimination, racism and numerous other attacks. The society, as it seemed, had waged war against this race but they were resilient. And now that they are among a different nation, it is imperative that these African Americans uphold their traditions.

Just looking at how African Americans survived the slavery and intolerance against them, you would grow to respect these people. But what made them pliant to all these trials? Was it keeping their traditions? If it was, how did these traditions reach the modern day African American kids? Handing down these customs to younger generations meant having someone teach the ways of the old. This is where mentoring comes in.

Mentoring is simply defined as a process where an experienced individual gives support and encouragement to a person who has less experience. The mentor then serves as the advisor though his example and guidance. Mentoring could be informal or formal.

With formal mentoring among African Americans, the mentor could be the guide of the student on his academic works. He could also guide the student to community affairs which aim to maintain their traditions through several factors such as religion, music, poetry, and others. It could also be as serious as coping with racial discrimination and how to be confident despite the environmental circumstances. With informal mentoring, it could simply mean teaching time management or networking with the same groups of people.

Is everything making sense so far? If not, I’m sure that with just a little more reading, all the facts will fall into place.

But what are the traditions that need to be handed down to the next generation? Looking at the younger generations of African Americans now, we can conclude that they have gone a long way and have improved immensely in all aspects. Confidence and self-worth is a great part of African American mentoring. What is there to be ashamed about their culture anyway? They are a great people and they value close family ties, respect for the elderly and they excel in arts and sports.

Due to this need for mentoring among the black race, 100 Black Men, Inc. was born in 1963. Its purpose is to improve African American lives in a community full of whites. Currently, there are famous members such as Denzel Washington, Bill Cosby, Michael Jordan, to name a few.

Mentoring was and still is an essential duty of this organization. One of their programs intended that children ages nine until post secondary learning would get holistic knowledge through some rites of passage which includes preparation of the males for their manhood. Also, the subjects cover aspects of heritage, family, etiquette, survival and other skills, and even faith. Resource management, athletics and tutoring are also essential parts of the learning process.

By taking part in such mentoring activities, the young African American would develop better understanding of his culture. Pride and self-esteem would also be established without disrespecting other colors or race.

The mentoring process, in general, teaches respect and appreciation for the African culture. By knowing the rich history and contemporary assets of these people, they are better able to keep and protect what rightfully belongs to them which no amount of slavery would be able to corrupt.

Take time to consider the points presented above. What you learn may help you overcome your hesitation to take action.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his top ranked GVO affiliate site: GVO

Mentoring

Why Join a Mentoring Program?

September 17th, 2010
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This interesting article addresses some of the key issues regarding Mentoring. A careful reading of this material could make a big difference in how you think about Mentoring.

Joining a mentoring program is a very powerful tool that can help you reach your potential because of the training and empowerment it provides. Mentoring is also one of the most effective ways for you to advance in your career because your skills are developed and your performance is monitored. In short, mentoring enables you to be the person you really want to be.

Two-way Relationship

It is important to realize though that mentoring is a relationship between two people who trust and respect each other. Mentoring is not simply a teacher-student relationship; rather, it is a partnership that will help both the mentor and the mentee grow both personally and professionally.

The mentor can aid the mentee so that he can find the right direction he should take in his career. The mentors will usually rely on their own experiences in the past and their knowledge about the industry. Because of this, mentoring can be a great way for a mentee to understand his career options and progress professionally in the future.

Most of the time, having a mentor will boost the confidence and the self-assurance of a mentee because he has all the support, encouragement, and guidance he needs. But the mentors should also take note that challenging the mentee to do his best is the best thing they can do so that the mentee will know how to handle difficult situations the right way in the future.

You may not consider everything you just read to be crucial information about Mentoring. But don’t be surprised if you find yourself recalling and using this very information in the next few days.

As was mentioned earlier, a mentoring program is a two-way relationship; so likewise, the mentor can also expect that he will learn a lot from teaching and guiding another person. This will develop his management and leadership skills so he will develop empathy for people who is experiencing the same struggles he did in the past.

Benefits of a Mentoring Program

A mentor will help a mentee believe in his or her capabilities as a person. Because of this, the self-confidence of the mentee will be improved and they will be more apt to accept more challenges in the future. The mentor would also enable the mentee to explore new ideas so that you can achieve a higher level of self-assurance in yourself and explore even greater highs of success. The mentoring program will be an opportunity for you to take a deeper look at yourself, your goals, your personality, and your life. This will enable you to know which the right path you should take in life is.

Features You Should Look For

Of course, it is inevitable that some mentoring programs would be better than others because of the features and objectives provided by the specific program. For example, it would be better for you to get a mentor from outside the company so that you will get an unbiased view of what you should do regardless of who your boss is. The mentoring program would not be entirely effective if your mentor knows your boss as well.

Likewise, the things that are discussed during the mentorship program should always remain confidential between the mentor and the mentee. And lastly, the mentorship program should be focused on the person. The mentor should be aware of the everyday challenges that his mentee faces so that these issues can be faced accordingly and enable the mentee to succeed in his career.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his top ranked GVO affiliate site: GVO

Mentoring

Youth The Concepts Behind Christian Mentoring

September 15th, 2010
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When you think about Mentoring, what do you think of first? Which aspects of Mentoring are important, which are essential, and which ones can you take or leave? You be the judge.

The process of guiding and mentoring people is a highly delicate one: mentors need to be able to allow their protégés to progress and get out of their shells, but they have to strike the balance between directing the movements of their followers while still allowing these fledglings time to find the strength of their own wings and fly with their own will. One such form of mentoring is Christian mentoring, in which a Christian looks after a protégé who may or may not be a Christian, but who will benefit from the strength and wisdom of the older or more experienced person.

One such mentoring relationship, at least in the Christian sense, is that between a senior pastor and his junior. The former will guide the younger in speaking the voice of God, and in bringing a sense of unity and Christian goodness to a flock. Another such Christian mentoring relationship is that between parents and children, where Christian parents have to guide their children in following the Christian way of living. Christian mentoring, therefore, is the passing down and sharing of knowledge and wisdom by someone who is an expert in a field, and with the precepts and principles of Christianity guiding the mentor and protégé.

In general, Christian mentoring programs will help people guide those who are younger than they in living a Christian way of life. Some mentoring programs will even exhort would-be or aspiring mentors to do two things at the onset: find a good mentor who will pass down knowledge and get an aspiring mentor started on good living and good Christian teachings; and, at nearly the same time, find a protégé who might benefit from your teaching and wisdom further down the line. Once these two persons are identified, a would-be or aspiring mentor is exhorted to be as creative as possible in meeting such people. These meetings might be as simple as stopping over at someone’s house, meeting over for coffee, or having dinner together.

If your Mentoring facts are out-of-date, how will that affect your actions and decisions? Make certain you don’t let important Mentoring information slip by you.

Another way for the mentor and protégé to meet is through a shared hobby. Such a hobby might include running, biking, writing poetry, reading books, or even cooking. Despite the image of intense and sometimes alienating spirituality attached to Christian mentoring, many Christian mentoring programs are actually more about building a stronger relationship between mentor and protégé. The shared hobby may actually be a simple beginning: many mentors will share tasks with their protégés, such as smaller jobs at one’s office, training the protégé in various tasks, or simply listening to the protégé talk.

What makes Christian mentoring unique, however, is its emphasis on things that would otherwise make people appear vulnerable in the secular arena. For instance, mentors and protégés are required to listen to each other intently, and to avoid speaking about oneself as much as possible in order to learn better. Second, mentors and protégés are required to be as real and as truthful to each other as possible. Honesty is certainly the best policy in Christian mentoring, and if a protégé is feeling down, awkward, unwanted, or simply out of sorts, he or she is encouraged to talk to his or her mentor and humbly ask for guidance.

There are many different kinds of Christian mentoring programs out there. If you need more information, talk to your local Christian pastor, or do research over the Internet. Many such mentoring programs also have their own websites and mailing lists that can make it easier for you to read about their activities and enroll in their program.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his new GVO affiliate site: GVO

Mentoring

The Fine Art of Mentoring

September 6th, 2010
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Mentoring doesn’t have to be a complicated process or business. Once it is designed to fit a particular need, it can be a very effective and simple method to implement, something that will be easy to use once it’s established. Although it consists of certain processes and procedures, mentoring is actually like fine art in that it requires creativity in design and implementation. It’s also a practice that requires flexibility and adaptability and will require participants to look beyond the mere series of techniques in order to put it into practice more effectively.

Why use mentoring programs
In many organizations, a gap often exists between the actual needs of the individuals and the established practices. Depending on how well the organization works to fill this gap, the difference may be great or small. The role of mentoring is to close this gap and allow staff, employees, personnel or students to access resources that will allow them to improve their learnings and skills.

Mentoring is also used to increase the quality of the intellectual capital of an organization, allowing employees to be trained in order to meet set standards of quality in terms of qualifications and technical skills. It is also an excellent tool for improving the standards of service in an organization. As a recruitment and retaining tool, mentoring is also effective, allowing businesses to attract quality employees by providing new ones with a means to adapt well to their new environment.

The fine art of mentoring
When people view mentoring, they see it as a means to transfer knowledge. However, it is so much more than that. Choosing, designing and implementing a mentoring program often requires inventive solutions in order for it to remain attractive, relevant, updated and useful. It has proven to be a very effective method in improving business processes and has become one of the highly valued issues within many organizations.

The best time to learn about Mentoring is before you’re in the thick of things. Wise readers will keep reading to earn some valuable Mentoring experience while it’s still free.

Matching
The main concern of mentoring is matching, something that requires patience and imagination on the part of the administrator. Having a good pairing between the mentor and the mentee is crucial to the success of the program. If the match is in place, both parties will benefit from a strong, mutually rewarding relationship. If the matching fails, either or both parties will suffer from negative learning or feel frustrated about a system that does nothing.

This is why administrators who wish to implement an effective mentoring system should find creative ways to determine the matching qualifications between the mentor and his protégé. Certain factors, for example, such as temperament, personal characteristics, values, philosophies or similar goals can impact the relationship. There is no set standard for matching, which makes it important that those who wish to implement the program should be able to apply a certain adaptability and imagination when determining a successful match.

Keeping the mentoring system fresh
A mentoring program also thrives on being up-to-date, which keeps it interesting. Implementing a mentoring program that is outdated can have disastrous results, encouraging participants to perceive it as ineffective and useless. Like art, mentoring must remain dynamic and appealing, keeping participants’ interests up, which gives them more reason to use the program.

Establishing a successful mentoring program
Mentoring is like fine art in that it needs to remain relevant and an effective source of motivation. As such, it has to undergo improvements along the way and must be open to changes. The best way to determine the success of the mentoring program is to compare the initial goals of the system to the results. This may be done through feedback and evaluations, allowing participants to comment on the strengths and weaknesses of the program. Without a set feedback system in place, it will be difficult indeed to quantify the efficacy of mentoring within an organization and thus rate its success.

This article’s coverage of the information is as complete as it can be today. But you should always leave open the possibility that future research could uncover new facts.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his new GVO affiliate site: GVO

Mentoring

The Concepts of Coaching and Mentoring

September 5th, 2010
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Guiding people through the right way through life can be a daunting task for any person who is tasked to do it. A person who has to do the guiding has a lot of delicate balances to strike: he or she has to be strong enough to reprimand the person who is following him or her when that follower is not being obedient or is straying from the right path; on the other hand, he or she has to sometimes allow the follower the chance to stray, so that the follower can gain experience and thus be much wiser. There are many different things that a person has to do to guide his or her follower or followers, and these concepts of guidance are covered under coaching and mentoring.

The process of mentoring involves the relationship and bonding between master and pupil, a togetherness that is more commonly referred to as mentor and protégé. A mentor is someone who may sometimes be older, but who is certainly more knowledgeable, more wise, and perhaps even more serene and settled than what might predictably be a less knowledgeable, less wise, and flighty protégé. The mentor’s task is to be the guide for the inexperienced protégé: as the protégé learns more and more from the mentor, the protégé is farther thrust into greatness.

The mentor-protégé relationship has long existed in history, and has been glorified by pop media. There are also many different mentor-protégé relationships in the modern world. For instance, when an employee first enters a company or business, he or she is adopted by someone who has been in the company or business for a long while. Because a new employee might experience culture shock, or might not be prepared for the rigors of the current workplace, the mentor serves as a buffer and guide through how the company or business operates, making the transition easier for the protégé.

It’s really a good idea to probe a little deeper into the subject of Mentoring. What you learn may give you the confidence you need to venture into new areas.

Still in line with workplace relationships, an existing employee might show potential as someone who could one day lead, or who could move on and be great elsewhere. In this case, a person experienced in the company could informally take on this employee and be his or her mentor. In this relationship, the mentor will teach the protégé the necessary skills to advance in the workplace, so that one day, the protégé might perhaps take the mentor’s place, advance elsewhere in the hierarchy, or move on to another company and do even better.

The concept of coaching, on the other hand, is quite different from that of mentoring. In coaching, a method is employed in which a leader or overseer directs the movements of a person or a group of persons. In coaching, the instruction and training given are done with a definite end goal in mind. The methods of directing people’s movements and thought process might include giving motivational talks. There are also ways to train people in order to make them perform better, such as through seminars or workshops, or through practice, such as those done by sports teams.

In mentoring, a mentor teaches a protégé how to live better or how to function better. In coaching, perhaps better seen as a more specific method of mentoring, the coach guides his or her team in order for them to meet an end goal. For sports coaches, this will mean victory in a game. For marriage coaches, this will mean a stronger marital bond. For family coaches, this will mean a stronger familial bond, between parents and children, and sometimes, amongst the children themselves.

There are many different kinds of mentoring and coaching, as well as different techniques associated with each. For more information, you can talk to professional mentors and coaches, or do more research online.

Those who only know one or two facts about Mentoring can be confused by misleading information. The best way to help those who are misled is to gently correct them with the truths you’re learning here.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his new GVO affiliate site: GVO

Mentoring