Ideas from other Portland Schools...

 emailed other counselors after our last meeting.  I copied responses from the people who have the program that’s kind of similar to ours below:

This is from Franklin:

“Yep…it’s a cool class…had one of our AP English teachers start it last year with a lot of kids who pushed into study hall and worked with kids who were failing….2 mentors were assigned one student.  They secured permission from parents to work with teachers of the student to help gather homework and reinforce habits…
Teacher is Susie Bartley.

Then this year a different AP English teacher took it over…same model.  Elle Wilder. 

Your teachers could email for the syllabus?

Hope this helps!!”

This is from Madison:

“We started it last year as a course option.  It was originally just for 9^th core but some kids are helping in other areas like 10^th core, digital design and SPED as well.

ACADEMIC MENTOR: Students have the opportunity to peer mentor and assist

in teaching coursework in the 9th grade science, language arts, math, or Modern

World History classroom. This coursework involves a commitment to attend a two day

training and meetings once a month during the school year with the academic

mentor coordinator and/or teacher(s). Academic Mentors will be taught effective

classroom strategies to assist teachers with general classroom activities, to help

small groups of students, and to work one-on-one with individual students. Students

who choose this course should have strong academic skills, enjoy mentoring, and

have the desire to help build the academic skills of younger students. This is a great

course for student who are thinking about becoming a teacher or for students who

just want to help freshmen be academically successful. Please list a focus area on

the forecast sheet: Science, Language Arts, Math, or Modern World History.

Prerequisite : Teacher recommendation and grades of A or B in focus area

(Science, Language Arts, Math, or Modern World History).

Good luck, Erin.”

This is from Wilson:

“Hi Jen, 

We have a peer tutoring program that our Librarian has started. The kids work in a 9th grade classroom but also have to do a few assignments with our librarian. Her name is Linda Campillo... She can give you the details. They earn a letter grade.”

Roosevelt just listed AVID and Lincoln has a program that isn’t really a course.    I kind of like Madison’s idea of a training and prerequisite grades but I’m pretty black and white and my counterparts here in counseling are pretty grey – not sure they’d go for it!  Damn counselor-typesJ.  I know we have a GPA requirement so at least that’s a start.  Franklin does something interesting but sounds like a lot of work! 

By the way, here is our current course description in the course guide:

“Student Mentor (11, 12) – full year course

Prerequisites: 3.5 GPA (or teacher/counselor recommendation), strong literacy, math, organizational and interpersonal skills, hardworking and responsible, as well as possessing a desire to help other students. 

Mentors will work with freshmen to provide academic support and tutoring in either Freshman Success, Math Support or in an Academy class.  Mentors foster communication and relationships with younger students, encourage organization and academic skills applicable to their own learning, collaborate in targeted learning with teacher/student(s), as well as develop valuable work skills in leadership, teaching and mentoring.  This is a graded (A-F) mentorship based on: daily attendance, individual and group tutoring, monitoring students’ progress, initiative and actions reflecting academic scholarship.”

Hope that helps some!

How the heck do I grade them?!

At this point I am just looking around for ideas. I don't want to make this more work in the classroom. I am already overwhelmed with students needing help. I want to find specifics on what it looks like and how to offer this is a structured way. Too much loosey goosey freedom and they will end up taking advantage. I found a bunch of links to studies, but man, I had the hardest time actually finding syllabi or rubrics that were at all helpful. I figured that I would find syllabi at Madison or Franklin since they had specific classes already in place, but nothing came up when I did a search.

I did find this tidbit below, which I thought I could adapt somewhat..but it is still pretty vague . It seems some teachers simply "assign" the mentor to certain students in the class. I could really use this with some of my special ed students. Or I could assign the mentor to an entire table each week. I need to go back and look at what you handed out earlier, Matt. That is the best resource I have seen so far.


Grade Determination:
Examinations/Assessments 20 % of Grade
The final exam consists of a reflections paper that details your personal growth, knowledge and observations over the
course of the semester. Specific details as to format and topic areas to cover will be provided.
Participation 60 % of Grade
You are an active member of this class as an assistant and even an instructor at times in guided situations. It is expected
that you will be actively working with a student or students throughout the class period. Conferencing with the teacher is
always encouraged if you have questions and need additional guidance.
Daily Assignments 20 % of Grade
You will be asked to read a variety of articles related to various disabilities and complete an assignment to demonstrate
your level of understanding. Additionally, you will be asked to complete a short research paper on an identified
disability. These activities are intended to help you complete the learning goals of the class.

http://lake-central.lcsc.us/teachers/cynthia-hoffman/index-2.php

Hello mentorship learning team....

Hello fellow mentor-ship researchers,

I'm making this blog so we all have a place to link what we are learning about creating a more student centered classroom.

In spite of the fact that I'm really not into leadership I am trying to do some here. Ugh.

I want to make the mentorship work better in my class simply because I hope to create a better community among the students.  It makes their lives better and therefore mine too.  It is equity work. Racial equity work.  Class equity work. Gender equity work. All that.  I think our current educational system constantly places all of us into box after box after box.  After teaching for almost 20 years now I don't see easy solutions for it. Teachers are on the line to provide content, create process, create interesting experiences to interest students, show what we know.  I usually love doing that, since I do love science and Chemistry.  But I also know that even though I've gotten pretty good at instructing in Chemistry and science there are always other ways of looking at things.  I also know that I daydreamed a hell of a lot as a high school student.  Just like my students (maybe not yours...) also do. I didn't always know who I should ask questions of.  The bell rings, you go here and there, you pick up this and that... Some of our students talk to each other about school work we provide, but they would usually rather talk about anything else but what we think they should.  So what are ways to work on that problem?
How do we get them to help each other more?  Academically and personally are totally interrelated. I've already found some good research about it...
So in spite of having had a nasty cold for over a week now and barely being able to talk today here's the start of a mentorship blog.  I hope it helps create an even better school for more of our students.

Please add links you find for good research.  If you don't know how, stop by my room and I'll show you.  Please add thoughts as well.

Now, where did I put those menthol cough suppressants?

Staab

General paste up of interesting comments in the research

Although 
mentoring 
has 
traditionally 
been
 an 
intervention 
geared 
more 
toward 
younger

students 
(i.e.,
elementary 
and 
early
 middle 
school 
students)
 (Bernstein 
et 
al.,
2009;

Herrera 
et
 al.,
2007), 
it 
holds 
unrealized 
potential 
in
serving 
high 
school 
students.

The 
effectiveness 
of 
mentoring, 
however, 
depends
 on 
the 
quality 
of 
the 
mentoring

relationship. 
Research 
suggests 
a 
strong
 connection 
between
 the 
benefits 
that 
youth

experience 
from
 mentoring 
and 
the 
closeness 
of 
the 
mentor/mentee 
relationship. 
Trust,

empathy,
 authenticity,
 and
 common 
interests 
are 
important 
components
 of 
close

relationships.


Provide space to try on different

identities (Schultz, 1999) including
academic identities (Callejo Perez,
Fain, & Slater, 2004; Maloney &
Saunders, 2004). For Schultz, this
means creating opportunities for
adolescent women to “try on” ways of
being women explored through issues
of class, gender, and race. Maloney
and Saunders examined the
academic identities minority students
feel safe assuming. Their project
revealed that when spaces were
created deliberately to promote
minority student participation in
honors classes, these students felt a
greater sense of belonging and desire
to participate in academically
challenging courses. Callejo Perez et
al. further reinforced the notion of
identities we are allowed to explore
and take on as an outgrowth of the
kinds of places we construct.

Research on building academic student mentorships

This blog will provide research on building academic student mentorships.


Online resources so far:

educationnorthwest.org
research on high school student mentoring programs by the principals partnership
research from big brothers big sisters high school student mentorships
Research on ethnic and academic identities 
Smaller learning communities research program This one is particularly useful so far...
Elements of effective practice for mentoring
Education NorthWest a local group info