Mentoring

Mentoring is a relationship in which a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps to guide a less experienced or less knowledgeable person. The mentor may be older or younger than the person being mentored, but they must have a certain area of expertise. It is a learning and development partnership between someone with vast experience and someone who wants to learn.

Overview

Mentoring is often one component of a program that involves other elements, such as tutoring or life skills training and coaching. The supportive, healthy relationships formed between mentors and mentees are both immediate and long-term and contribute to a host of benefits for mentors and mentees.

Types of Mentoring

There are several types of mentoring relationships, and mentees should understand the significance of these relationships before entering into them. These include professional associations, academic mentoring, peer mentoring, and life coaching.

Professional Associations

Professional associations, or organizations, can be a great source for finding mentors, especially in the business world. These organizations, some of which are for profit and others that are non-profit, are designed to serve the interests of the members of a particular profession and to promote excellence in the field.

Academic Mentoring

Academic mentoring helps students navigate through academic life. Academic mentors help students learn how to increase their understanding of literature, improve writing skills, and network for future jobs.

Peer Mentoring

Peer mentoring is a form of mentorship that usually takes place between a person who has lived through a specific experience (peer mentor) and a person who is new to that experience (the peer mentee). An example would be an experienced student being a mentor to a new student, the peer mentee, in a particular school or program.

Life Coaching

Life coaching is a process of helping people identify and achieve personal goals. Although life coaches may have studied counseling psychology or related subjects, a life coach does not act as a therapist, counselor, or health care provider, and psychological intervention lies outside the scope of life coaching.

Benefits of Mentoring

Mentoring has significant positive effects on two early warning indicators that a student may be falling off-track:

• High levels of absenteeism (Kennelly & Monrad, 2007)
• Students who meet regularly with their mentors are 52% less likely than their peers to skip a day of school and 37% less likely to skip a class.

See also

• Coaching
• Tutoring
• Life skills

References

Mentoring Resources
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