Thank you for your willingness to support other learners on their learning journey. The support of a mentor is a vital aspect of the experience of learning for so many people, just as it may have been for you. We are here to support you in this crucial calling and help you improve your practice. Here are some resources for you to explore to help you in your role as a learning mentor.

The Learning Journey Your Mentee is Following

It is really helpful to your mentee if you familiarise yourself with the content of the learning resource they are studying. It is likely that this is a learning resource you will have studied yourself in a prior cohort. We encourage you nonetheless to make sure you understand the course as it is now being delivered. There might be some subtle changes from when you were a learner or it might even have undergone a more major revision. It helps learners to feel confident if their mentor has a good appreciation for the overall shape of the resource and where it is heading, as well as the more immediate content of the unit they are currently studying. As a learning mentor, you will be given access to the material here on our Moodle site. Do contact us at learning@elydiocese.org if you have not received an enrolment key.

Meeting with the Learning Facilitator

For all learning resources that are delivered in person or remotely, we do encourage the learning facilitator to meet with mentors at the beginning of the course to set out its structure and highlight any particular learning challenges where students might need more focused support to grasp the knowledge or skills they are being asked to develop. We also encourage a similar meeting soon after the learning journey has finished gathering any feedback and learning that will improve its content and delivery.

Learning Mentors’ Action Learning Set

We also encourage mentors to form an action learning set to meet once or twice during the course to support one another as mentors. This won’t usually be facilitated by a member of our team, so do agree before you meet which of you will facilitate each session. For a brief introduction to action learning sets, watch the video below from the School for Social Entrepreneurs. The participants in the video are entrepreneurs rather than learning mentors, but the principles are the same.

Learning Mentor Supervision

We also offer each learning mentor one supervision session during each course you’re involved in. Contact us at learning@elydiocese.org to book your session.

Skills for Learning Mentors

We are in the process of developing an open-access online learning resource for learning mentors. In the meantime, here are some online resources you might find helpful.

Active Listening

Good, person-centred listening skills are essential to be an effective learning mentor. In the video below the presenter from the Harvard Business Review sets out some helpful principles and practices that go beyond simply making eye contact and affirming sounds as the person we’re attempting to listen to speaks!

Getting Organised

Supporting others well takes good organisation. You might be well-organised already, but if you could do with improving your skills in this area, take a look at the video below from YouTuber Ali Abdaal who helpfully distills for us some key time management principles from his wide reading on the subject.

A Non-judgemental Attitude

Really key to supporting another person in their learning is to develop a non-judgemental attitude and even further to choose to adopt a stance of belief in their capacity to learn and grow. In the video below, Kim Morgan, owner of Barefoot Coaching, sets out why what we call ‘Unconditional Positive Regard’ it is so important in coaching. The same principles apply to mentoring someone in their learning.