Written by Sandra Abegglen

Mentoring experiences

This week, a group of mentors asked their peers what they took from their peer mentoring experiences – current and past. These were their answers – both from the viewpoint as a mentor and a mentee: Great to read that peer mentoring had such a positive impact on them.

Written by Sandra Abegglen

The impact of peer mentoring

Today, we discussed an article which explores the effect of peer mentoring. A copy of the article – Effect of Peer Mentoring on Types of Peer Mentor Support, Program Satisfaction and Graduate Student Stress: A Dyadic Perspective by Elisa J. Grant-Vallone and Ellen A. Ensher – can be found here. Key points mentors took from the article were […]

Written by Sandra Abegglen

Example

I’ve just stumbled across an interesting peer mentoring project: Girl Talk. Have a look at their website to find out what they are doing and how their peer mentoring programme works.

Written by Sandra Abegglen

Week 09 – Mentor diary

This is what one of the second year mentors wrote about her session with mentees this week: During the mentoring session – I helped the mentees with any questions or queries they had. For example, one of the students wanted to know more about how Year 2 courses work and the different option modules that […]

Written by Sandra Abegglen

Group dynamics

When mentoring groups, it is important to think about the dynamics at work within the (mentee) group. Bruce Tuckman (1965) has carried out research into the theories of group dynamics. He developed a theory called ‘Tuckman’s stages of group development’ (Tuckman 1965) which is useful for understanding what forces are at work when people are supposed […]

Written by Sandra Abegglen

Insights

Second year students (mentors) asked first year students (mentees) what they thought about their course – BA Hons Education Studies, London Metropolitan University – as part of their Peer Mentoring Practice training. That’s what first year students said:

Written by Sandra Abegglen

Challenging situations

In the mentoring process, things not always run smoothly. Challenging situations can occur. Here are some tips and hints how to handle such situations. Put the mentee at ease… Stay calm (take a deep breath) Use body language to communicate attentiveness/openness Let the mentee do the talking (‘letting off steam’) Avoid judgmental statements such as […]