The Mentor or the Mentee - A Personal Reflection Cheryll Douglas Associate Director Office of Clinical Experiences College of Education University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign In my role as a cooperating teacher, I was a mentor to the student assigned to my classroom. I thought I had so much to offer to this young, enthusiastic, and idealistic college senior! However, the semester provided as much of a major change in my methods of classroom instruction as it did to her development as a teacher. Sally, my student teacher, was incredibly computer literate. She could make class rosters, charts, and graphs for math class. She created banners and flow charts for social studies class. She prepared eye-popping graphics and reading projects for language arts class. She inserted clip art into the weekly class newsletter. She designed charming programs to distribute to parents at our class play. I was extremely appreciative of her and her many talents. The number of planning and instructional forms she could produce to help the class operate efficiently and in an organized manner was a wonderful attribute for all our activities. Very early in the practicum, I decided there would be two mentors in our classroom. I would coach Sally in developing good questioning techniques and assist her with planning interesting lessons that held students to high expectations of understanding. I would offer guidance in ways to create a positive classroom environment that was exciting and conducive to learning. Sally would be the other mentor. I would ask her to coach me in ways to use technology in my classroom. I would ask for her support and encouragement as I learned to use the computer for more than word processing. Sally and I, individually and in tandem, worked diligently throughout the semester toward our goals of becoming more effective teachers. Sally became a very competent student teacher. Her technology skills, creative ideas, and teacher presence inspired my students. As the semester progressed, she continued to find new uses for technology. She taught the students to use the computer to develop charts to record information and data for reports and science experiments. She guided students through the process of creating tables for data collection in their studies of predictions. She continued to teach my students technology skills and encouraged them to use the computer in all content areas of our curriculum. Sally graduated with high recommendations for future employment. Perhaps equally as important, I developed many competencies in technological skills and looked forward to developing units and projects to insure my students were involved in their own learning. Throughout the rest of that year and the remainder of my years teaching in the classroom, my students not only learned content knowledge but they also learned application of content knowledge aided by their technology skills. Following graduation, Sally landed her first teaching position with a 3rd grade classroom in California. I remained with my 4th grade classroom in Illinois. It was the perfect opportunity to work together on a collaborative project. Both Sally and I studied migration using a web-based site that recorded data about various animal migrations, and our own classes collected data. We shared class information via email. We each had a cam on our computer so we could actually visit each other's classroom and talk about the migration patterns we were seeing in our respective areas. My students were able to map out the migration of the whales up the west coast. Her students were able to map the bird migration of central Illinois. Mentoring is a wonderful opportunity. It is not uncommon for the same scenario that developed between Sally and me to develop between mentor and mentee. It only makes sense that, given an open mind and a strong desire to learn, two people with different backgrounds can have so much to share and to teach each other. The first year teacher must develop the necessary attitude and take the necessary steps to ensure the mentoring process survives through his or her first year. There are many groups of people that are willing to help and assist that first year. These include parents, students, administrators and staff, community leaders, and co-workers. The first year teacher's goals must be to: ask for help be a teachable person be collegial with all teachers and staff members be willing to accept responsibilities participate in school activities do your part to make your school a success. © The Illinois Community College Board, Illinois Board of Higher Education, and Illinois State Board of Education, in conjunction with a Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers To Use Technology (PT3) grant from the U.S. Department of Education, funded this project to infuse technology into the core curriculum at Illinois Community Colleges and Universities.