John Wilson, Professor, College of Southern Maryland

Oars Against the Current: Using Technology to Improve Faculty Mentoring

Session 3.11. January 5, 2017

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Thank you for choosing to come today. Feel free to ask questions or make comments as they occur to you. Any teachers here today? Anyone have anything to do with a mentor program? What do you wish to leave with? Blausee, Switzerland Photo by John Wilson

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Pop quiz! Which one is the mentor? Well either could be the mentor. But the mentor should realize that the partner may have as much to share as the mentor. The mentor may be an expert on the boat or the lake, that is the mentor will have expertise that the partner needs, but the partner may be very experienced and can also mentor the mentor. So it is always worthwhile to explore each other’s history and determine who will teach who what. And remember what Heinlein said, “When one teaches, two learn.” Lake Thun (Thunersee) Switzerland Photo by John Wilson

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When a mentor is paired with a partner neither should feel like this. I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals. Sir Winston Churchill St. George's, Newfoundland, Canada Photo by John Wilson

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How can we engineer success in matching a mentor to a mentee? Who should choose the mentor? Who should decide which mentor goes with each mentee? What qualities does a good mentor have? How do we measure the partnership? How do we learn of success or of failure? Lake Thun (Thunersee) Switzerland Photo by author

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It was Nick. Nick Carraway who said it. “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald Life’s river does have a strong current so we need a way to move upstream. Western Brook Pond, Newfoundland, Canada Photo by John Wilson

OARS AGAINST THE CURRENT

College Of Southern Maryland Faculty Mentoring Committee

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The CSM Faculty Mentor Committee administers the program and has two co-chairs who serve for two years. There is also an assistant co chair who serves for two years and then becomes one of the co chairs when a co-chair steps down. There is also a coordinator who helps do the administration so we can track mentor partnerships. There is also a backup coordinator. Overview The goal of the faculty mentoring program at the College of Southern Maryland is to provide sharing partnerships to foster success in the classroom and to encourage creativity in teaching. The program includes three kinds of mentoring situations: 1. Division mentoring for new full-time and part-time faculty �2. Division mentoring for new faculty �3. Cross-divisional mentoring for experienced faculty who wish to improve their skills (e.g. distance learning). These mentoring partnerships are available on campuses in Charles, Calvert and St. Mary's Counties. Blausee, Switzerland Photo by John Wilson

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The faculty mentor committee oversees the program but management has to power to act where the committee can’t. The committee can make suggestions like consider choosing mentors early so they and the mentees have time to prepare for the semester. Only the division chairs can make this happen no matter how many times it is suggested. Thunersee, Switzerland Photo by John Wilson

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No matter how good your faculty mentoring program is, it could be better. Once you start using your mentor program it is launched into the river of life and the river has a strong current. Without oars the program will move downstream and our destination is upstream. Though we may never reach it we do wish to move towards it. St. George's, Newfoundland, Canada Photo by John Wilson

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One way to improve the faculty mentor program is to listen to words, still warm, whispered by those who use it. Photo by PowerPoint

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There are many ways to collect and review feedback from mentors and partners. This is a screenshot of the CSM Mentor Evaluation Form (online)

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Reviewing and acting on feedback allows the program to improve. Thun, Switzerland Photo by John Wilson

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It is also important to preserve the feedback and document action taken and share this with management.

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One way to collect feedback, save and store it, and document what action is taken is to use Cloud computing. If where you live you have more than one computer, tablet, printer, or other network device that can “see” each other and share with each other then that network is represented as a cloud. The Internet is referred to as a cloud, too, and its various services offered there are known as cloud computing. In this image you can see the clouds reflected on the surface of the lake. They appear to be close enough to touch although they are really quite out of reach. When you edit a file in the cloud you can do so on your computer or online. If you edit the file on your computer what you do is synchronized with where the file is stored online. Alaska Photo by John Wilson

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Microsoft OneDrive or Google Drive both allow the creation of online forms to capture feedback submitted by mentors and mentees. Online forms link to a spreadsheet that stores feedback. Online forms eliminate the creation, distribution and recovery of evaluations. They also allow users anonymity so they may alert you to what is good and bad about the program. Then one person can copy the feedback from the spreadsheet into an OneNote or Word file, also in the cloud. The link to this file is then sent to the committee, and the feedback can be reviewed for suggestions to improve the program. The annual report can store feedback and actions taken. This is a screenshot of the CSM Partner Evaluation Form (online)

CSM Faculty Mentoring Web Sitehttp://www.itc.csmd.edu/tec/johnw/mntr/mtrx.html

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It was not Nick. Nick Carraway did not say this: So we beat on, oars against the current, improving our mentor program by listening to words, still warm whispered by those who use it. Western Brook Pond Newfoundland, Canada Photo by John Wilson

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The word mentor comes from Homer. In Homer’s Odyssey as Odysseus prepares to leave for the Trojan War he asks Mentor, an old friend, to guide his son Telemachus until he returns. Mentor does not appear at all in the Iliad. Often when he appears in the Odyssey it is not Mentor but Athena who has assumed his shape. Eucharis, Telemachus and Mentor in a scene from Les aventures de Télémaque (1699) by François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon This popular novel describes the travels of Telemachus and Mentor (most often Mentor is Pallas Athena in disquise) and this book helped to bring mentor into dictionaries around the world with a meaning of a trusted guide. Eucharis does not appear in Homer’s works. English translation at Archive.org: https://archive.org/details/adventuresoftele00fnel French version at Gutterberg: Les aventures de Télémaque suivies des aventures d'Aritonoüs by Fénelon https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30779 François de Salignac de La Mothe-Fénelon https://www.britannica.com/biography/Francois-de-Salignac-de-La-Mothe-Fenelon#ref93084 Image: Artist:   Raymond Auguste Quinsac Monvoisin   Title:   Telemachus and Eucharis   Date:   1824   http://collections.artsmia.org/search/Eucharis Telemachus and Eucharis, 1824 http://collections.artsmia.org/art/2542/telemachus-and-eucharis-raymond-auguste-quinsac-monvoisin

References

• CSM Faculty Web Sitehttp://www.itc.csmd.edu/tec/johnw/mntr/mtrx.html

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Questions? Ideas for how we can all improve our mentoring programs. Near Crystal, MN Photo by John Wilson

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Blausee, Switzerland Photo by author

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Blausee, Switzerland Photo by author

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Blausee Photo by author

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The mentor committee has two co-chairs who serve for two years. There is also an assistant co chair who serves for two years and then becomes on of the co chairs. There is also a coordinator who helps do the administration so we can track mentor partnerships. There is also a backup coordinator so if something happens someone can fill in who knows how to do the job. Lake Thun Switzerland Photo by author