Duration: 11m21s

Hi everybody, I'm Kay Schlesinger from KG Educational Consulting and as part of AUSMAS's VET Resource Hub, this video looks at an introduction to mentoring and the kind of practices that create effective mentoring programs. So let's begin together.
 
One of the high impact teaching strategies researched by John Hattie and others looks at the notion of a learning intention to support learning. So our learning intention today : We are learning about the purpose, stakeholders, history and values central to mentoring in the automotive and mining sectors. 

What areas will we be investigating today? Well, there are 6 topics.

Who is who in the program? What is mentoring? A brief history of mentoring, defining the mentee and the mentor, the values of mentoring, and we'll finish with some reflection questions.

So topic one, who is who in the program? So we have so many names for educators in training and assessment organisations. We can call them trainers, teachers, senior educators, senior lecturers. There's so many names that we use across both of our sectors. So in this series, we're going to use the word educator for all of us.

So what is mentoring? That's our next topic that we're going to investigate. So mentoring is very much that developmental relationship between an experienced person in a sector and a less experienced person. And together they form a little community if you like, and they engage in a learning relationship that increases the skills of both people and both people get to reflect on that relationship. I want you to think of it as a reciprocal relationship where both people have benefits. 

to give the other person and to gain from the process. So they engage in this learning relationship to increase both sets of knowledge and skills. 
I think too this notion that mentoring really operates where, you know, instructions finish. So mentoring gives us some clear clues about how to be a professional in the midst of often uncertain situations. 

And the process of mentoring can actually influence the type of educator we become in the longer term. So I think that's really important, the notion that it gives us a grounding in uncertain times, but it also influences the type of professional that we grow into, I think both parts are really crucial. 

 We're going to head into this notion that mentors bring out the gold in their people. And I think this is a lovely way of thinking of it, by focusing on progress and giving clear and fair feedback. So mentors help bring out the gold in their people. I think that's just a fabulous way of looking at this whole concept of mentoring. 

 Let's head into topic 3 and we're just going to cover a very brief history of mentoring and we're going to look at 2 interesting examples. 
So mentoring is not a new concept. If we travel back in history, the first example that we're going to look at today comes from the Trojan War, which was 3000 years ago. And in this Trojan War, there was a character called Odysseus who entrusted his young son, Telemachus, into the care of a mentor, his trusted companion, when he goes off to fight the Trojan War. So the term mentor came from this situation in ancient times. 

The second example takes us to the Middle Ages where we know guild professionals helped young people acquire technical skills, using very much a mentoring approach. And this approach is still used in many trade areas around Australia today. 
And, for our purposes for this video, certainly in the mining and automotive sectors. 

So let's have a look now at topic 4, defining the mentor and the mentee, because we want to be clear about the language that we're using. So, who is the mentor? Well, this is somebody with valuable industry experience and knowledge. They've been in the game a while. But they're also somebody who helps promote learning and growth. And both of these aspects are important. It's somebody who shares their insights, gives feedback, and also connects the mentee to other people in the industry. We might also suggest that there is a spirit of goodwill to share and guide the mentee.

So, this mentor is really important in the relationship. Conversely, the mentee is a really important part of the relationship as well. They are someone who is eager to grow, learn and develop professionally and who engages with the mentor to assist in that process. So the mentee is required to be open and curious and ready to transform knowledge, advice and feedback into their next practice. It also implies a real element of trust in the mentor, and this is a two-way process that will be discussed in other videos, and this of course develops over time. 

So let's look at topic 5, the values of mentoring. What are the key values that underpin A mentoring program? Well, the values that we really acknowledge and respect. The first one is of course respect. And then innovation, curiosity. 
courage and humour. So these are the things, if you like, that underpin the way that we operate as both mentors and mentees in a program. It's also really important that the organisation reflects these values in the way the program is organised. And I'm sure that those values are found across the automotive and mining sectors. So that's something to consider as you move into a mentoring program, those key important values.

Topic 6 today is our reflection questions. They will help us to review our thinking and to consolidate some of the ideas. 
So I like this quote from Ghaye, Tony Ghaye, and it says, “reflective practices offer us a way of trying to make sense of the uncertainty in our workplaces and the courage to work competently and ethically at the edge of order and chaos.” I don't know about you, but many of the organizations that I have been working in mentoring programs have had elements of chaos and disorder. I think it's part of being human in an organization. And I like Ghaye’s quote because he's telling us that reflective practices let us become wiser in that sort of context. 

So let's have a look at our questions today.

What has been new learning for you today, perhaps in this video? 
What is the difference between the mentor and the mentee? 
What important values do you believe underpin effective mentoring? 
And what ideas can you reflect upon that might be of value to your workplace?

And our session in review, we have covered a fair amount of topics today to give us that good introduction into the concept of mentoring. So what did we look at? We looked at who is who in the program. What is mentoring? A brief history of mentoring. Defining the mentor and the mentee, the values of mentoring, and we finished up with some reflection questions. Our learning intention, which as we said at the start, would be at the beginning and the end of a session like bookends. We have been learning about the purpose, stakeholders, history and values central to mentoring in the automotive and mining sectors.

That brings us to the end of this video. If you would like to keep building your understanding of mentoring, you can watch the other videos in the series and explore more resources available in the AUSMASA VET Resource Hub. Thanks for joining. And I look forward to seeing you in the following videos. 

END.

Duration: 12m05s

I'm Kay Schlesinger from KG Edconsulting, and as part of AUSMAS' VET Resource Hub, this video is going to look at mentoring principles that underpin a successful mentoring program. So let's begin together. 

 One of the 10 high impact teaching strategies researched by Hattie indicates for us that having a learning intention at the start of a session inspires and helps people learn. So this will occur at the beginning of each recording and 
the end. So let's look at what is our learning intention for today. We are learning about the principles that underpin effective mentoring programs within the automotive and mining sectors. 

So our overview today is we are going to investigate 3 areas of focus. The first, mentoring principles, the second, the 8 principles to guide our practice, and the third, we will look at a series of reflection questions. 

 So, let's head off to our first topic, which is mentoring principles. Clarifying the term mentoring principles is really important so that we all begin this journey with a successful understanding and a shared understanding of what the terms mean.

So mentoring principles, if you like, are the safety rules or the core standards for a mentoring partnership. Think of them, if you like, as the blueprint for a productive program. They, in fact, define how mentors and mentees communicate, they set the expectations of how the program will run, and very importantly build  trust to ensure that they do the job well.

So why are mentoring principles important to us in this program? Well, they are like the foundations of a building and they set the scene for everything that is going to come next. So an effective, well-structured mentoring program is grounded in really clear principles which everybody shares and understands to ensure that our program is safe, ethical and indeed effective and productive. 

These foundational principles also transform what could have been casual conversations and casual observations of teaching, into structured development tools that benefit both the mentors and the mentees, but also, interestingly enough, their organisations. 

 So let's head in now to the actual principles and let's look at topic 2, the 8 mentoring principles. 
So the 8 mentoring principles that we're going to investigate today in this video are one, clear shared intention, two, a spirit of equality, three, enlightened observation. 

Four, reciprocity, five, ownership, six, confidentiality, seven, authenticity, and eight, reflection. 
So let's head into that first principle that we're going to explore together. Clear, shared intention. And what actually does that mean and why is it indeed important? So we are seeking together to understand a mentoring program that sits within an organisation. And we're going to share the discussions with the mentee who we're going to be working with. So it's not just going to be the mentor understands the program and the mentee is on the outside. It's actually going to be both people sharing a conversation.

Its about the intention of the program. We're also going to recognise together the notion of a growth mindset. And this is some research done by Carol Dweck. And what she says is that a growth mindset acknowledges the fact basically that we don't know everything, but we're willing to investigate. And we're willing to acknowledge when we make mistakes in order to be better at what we do. 

 The second principle is that spirit of equality. So we need to be crystal clear about this, that mentors and mentees are equal partners. They share the power in this relationship. The mentor is not the superior, not the boss, not the leader, but they are collaborators together. So, this means that they share influence and they share the voice in their mentoring sessions. 

 The third principle is enlightened observation. If we are observing the mentee teaching or the mentee is observing the mentor teaching, we do that with a positive approach. And we ask questions to inform our understanding, and once again, we reframe challenges that we see in those observations as opportunities for growth, things that we can actually learn from in the future. 

 Reciprocity is the next one. This notion, I think, is really interesting in that it looks to see that each person learns from the other. So mentors can expect to learn things from their mentees. The mentees can expect to learn things from their mentors. So the interactions become a vehicle really for mutual learning, which is gold in a mentoring program. So it provides us with that real opportunity to share ideas and practice. And that idea of a mutual exchange, where you can take the ideas that you see and you can adapt them within your own environment. 

 The next principle is around ownership. And this means that you actually own your skills as they are developing. Nobody began a mentoring program on day one being an expert. We all went through a process of learning as we went. So we have the best intentions for our mentoring interactions, but I think we also need to be proud of what we are doing and of the way that we're learning in this new role. 

 Confidentiality is the next, the 6th of the principles, and we are looking at always maintaining the confidentiality of the mentee. So this is vitally important that we don't report our mentoring conversations to a leader to a manager to a direct report. What we said in those mentoring sessions is actually entirely confidential. And if somebody wants some feedback around the program, we can do that talking about general themes, but definitely not about a conversation with a mentee. So this notion of confidentiality also acknowledges that there's an opportunity for development.

We are not skilled mentors on our first day of mentoring. And we're going to investigate together, the mentor and the mentee together, what opportunities exist for us to solve problems collaboratively and work as a team within that confidential space. 

 The 7th principle is the notion of authenticity. And I think this is really lovely, that we share our best self, we share our best intentions, that we have a spirit of honesty when we interact with people in the program. And sometimes that might mean that we can share past challenges that we have indeed had, and we can share some of the ways that we resolved those on a continual journey. This notion of mentoring is not a linear experience, it's a continual experience for us. 

 The last principle for today in this topic, we're going to look at the important notion of reflection. So we reflect on our practice all the way through a mentoring program and we look at what have we done really well and what can be improved. We can also reflect as mentors on the way that we shared the conversation with the mentee. We can reflect on what learning the mentee has offered us. And we can indeed reflect on the entire program that we are part of and how that might be improved in the future? 

 So that is the end of topic two and we're moving now into topic three, which looks at reflection questions about the content of this video. so let's have a look at our reflection questions for today. We're looking at what is the purpose of mentoring principles? Why do we have them? Which of the eight principles resonated with you as you began mentoring? Which principle will take some time to fully understand? 
and practice? What challenged you today and what was a key learning for you today? 

So to review our session today, we have looked at mentoring principles, we've looked at the 8 principles, and we've looked at a series of reflection questions. 
Here is the bookend for the learning intention that comes at the beginning and in this case, at the end of the session. We have been learning about the principles that underpin effective mentoring programs within the automotive and mining sectors. 
And this brings us to the end of this video. If you'd like to keep building your understanding of mentoring, you can certainly watch the other videos in the series and explore more resources available in the AUSMASA VET Resource Hub. Thanks for joining today. 

END.