Reflections

Below are my weekly reflections that I documented after my mentoring sessions with Nicole.  They outline how Nicole felt she was progressing as well as how I feel I did as her mentor.  I end with reflecting on mentoring as a form of technology professional development. 

Week One Reflection

After our first week in our mentoring relationship, Nicole and I have really connected and have been able to communicate clearly and often.  I like that she feels comfortable enough to text me with questions about all things EdTech.  After our first week and our in person meeting, Nicole told me that she felt so much more confident with organizing her digital files.  She said she finally understood Google Drive and saw why people are using Drive at school to share files.  Now she is excited to organize her school files in Drive.  This makes me so happy because I feel like I was successful as a mentor during this first week.  I was able to listen to what Nicole needed and made my support applicable to her life so she could see the use in what I was showing her.  Nicole actually was very close to answering her own questions, but she just needed to talk through her thoughts and have someone reaffirm her thinking.  I feel that after the first week, Nicole is much more confident in understanding Evernote and Google Drive.  I'm glad I kept our in person session very casual and conversational because that allowed us to cover a lot of information in a couple of hours.  I will continue to try to pay attention to Nicole's needs and shift my plans as necessary.  

Week Two Reflection

Two weeks into our mentoring relationship, Nicole has become much more confident in using technology with her kindergartners.  Our second in person meeting was more like a discussion than our first meeting.  I wasn't taking the lead as much in this conversation.  Instead, we were both talking about the Web-based programs and apps more like two colleagues than mentor and mentee.  Nicole said she was feeling much more confident in choosing Web-based resources and apps to use with her students.  She said she looked at those resources in a different way and was glad that we went as in depth as we did.  I feel like Nicole is progressing well and rapidly because she has such high motivation to use more technology with her students.  Also, this relationship has reminded me how much professional growth happens each week in our EdTech Masters program.  After just two weeks, Nicole is using slightly different language when talking about technology, and I can see her expertise growing.  As a mentor, I think I did well this week in listening to Nicole's needs and paying attention to what will best help her.  I kept our focus on just resources for students to use with their devices, which allowed us to really go in depth.  I'm glad I didn't have much on our agenda so we didn't just quickly discuss each task.  I was also happy to be able to use what I have learned from the EdTech Masters program.  When evaluating the software with Nicole, it was second nature to me and I knew exactly what to look for to give a thorough evaluation.  A year ago, evaluating software seemed difficult and was not something I was ever in the habit of doing.  Working with Nicole is allowing me to reflect on my growth as an educator because of our Masters program and to think about how far I have come.    

Week Three Reflection 

After the third week of our mentoring relationship, I am completely impressed and inspired by Nicole.  She made such tremendous gains in her experience and knowledge through planning and implementing her distance education lessons.  At the beginning of the week, Nicole was unsure of the DE experience and had a lot of anxiety about it.  She was worried about the distance lessons not being effective.  I assured Nicole that everything would be great and told her to focus on her learning.  I explained that everything is a learning experience, and, whether good or bad, those experiences will help to shape her into the teacher she wants to be.  By the end of the week, Nicole had seen success in her DE lessons and was more confident than ever.  She had even contacted a kindergarten teacher at another school that she knows and is in the process of planning DE learning experiences for both of those classes!  Nicole said she is proud of her work this week and feels much more confident with distance education.  She is at the point where she wants more DE experiences to connect her class to the world.  As Nicole's mentor, I am so proud of her and the work that she puts into her teaching every day.  This week she tried something that she wasn't comfortable with and was extremely successful.  My role was to encourage Nicole and to help her see all the successes around her, which helped Nicole to ease her worries.  She is very hard on herself and wants perfection, but this week I feel like she truly understood that things don't have to go perfectly.  It's all about the process.  

Mentoring as Technology Professional Development

As I reflect on this mentoring experience, I can see the tremendous value of mentoring as a form of technology professional development (PD).  All too often, teachers are shown a new form of technology and expected to implement it successfully after one training.  This type of PD is unsuccessful because there is no follow-up support.  As a Digital Learning Coach, I offer teachers support before, during, and after school.  During the day, my schedule is packed with demo lessons where I show teachers how to use various technology tools to support the four Cs of 21st century skills.  This type of PD has been successful, but I have noticed after only a few months that I am not helping to empower teachers.  I need to follow up with teachers and co-plan/co-teach lessons so the teachers get to use the technology and learn with it.  I need time with the teachers to focus on them individually so I can listen to what they need. 

Mentoring as a form of technology PD brings in what I'm missing from my teacher support, which is relationship building.  I'm going into teachers' classrooms, demonstrating lessons, then finding it difficult to schedule in time to discuss the lessons at the end of the day.  Emailing the follow-up remarks isn't personal enough.  In being Nicole's mentor, I focused on what she needed by listening to her concerns and desires for EdTech.  We spent much of our time talking so I could plan a mentoring session that would be most meaningful to her.  After our mentoring sessions, we talked some more to discuss next steps and how I could support Nicole in the following week.  Although I don't have time to go through the mentoring process with every teacher at both of my schools, I can see choosing a few teachers at each school to focus on.  I think a month would be enough time to mentor those teachers, giving them the time they need to talk about their needs and meet in person.  After a month, I can set those teachers loose to inspire their students and other teachers.  Then I can choose another few teachers to begin a mentoring relationship with.  

I thought that mentoring would just be for this assignment and wasn't sure if it would be feasible with my job as a Digital Learning Coach.  I now see the great value in mentoring as a form of technology PD and I plan on choosing a few teachers each month to mentor.  By mentoring a few teachers in a month, I can listen to their specific needs and plan PD that addresses exactly what they need.  The teachers feel like I am dedicated to them and that I have time to talk with them.  Mentoring is the piece that I'm missing to my puzzle, and I am so grateful for this experience and how it has helped me to grow as an educator.