Mentoring Examples

II. BUSINESS INITIATED MENTORING:

• Hewlett-Packard Email Mentoring Program
  
• Junior Achievement
  
• Trilateral Partnership in Education
  
• Rochester School #43 Business Partnership
  
• Massachusetts Software Council, Inc.
  
• Straight Talk about Schools
  
• AT&T Learning Network
  
• Digital Heroes
  

• Partners in Education (PIE)
  
• Pueblo Global Learning Collaboratory
  
• Volunteer Students Tutoring Association
  
• Computer Clubhouse
  
• St. Olaf College
  
• Electronic Emissary
  
• Teachers mentor Teachers
  
• Phoenix Braintrust
  
• Sanchez Elementary School Online Mentoring Program
  

• Testbed
  
• Kansas Mentor Project
  
• International Tutoring
  
• READ*WRITE*NOW
  
• Community Learning and Information Network
  
• WITI Women in Technology
• Telecollaborating Around the World
  

Examples:

• A student may be given an assignment to write a resume and cover letter in her English class. The critique by her English teacher will be expected and most likely ignored as simply a part of the school grading system. However, when her businessperson mentor criticizes the assignment, the suggestions are authentic. Because the mentor is a businessperson and has experience with reading resumes and cover letters, her criticism is more likely to be taken seriously by the student

• Mentoring example from Hewlett-Packard: "Jenny, a local 4th grader, has an interest in frogs. Jenny applies for a mentee position and is matched up with a mentor who treats her interest in frogs as important as nuclear physics. Jenny is pointed to places on the Internet where frogs are discussed and is now in communication with a leading scientist in Europe who is conducting acid rain research using....yes, frogs. The scientist helps Jenny understand the relationship between math, an area where she is struggling in school, and her interest in frogs. Jenny begins to understand the math used by the scientist while conducting frog research. Jenny's math scores begin to improve and she is enjoying school again."

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Business initiated Mentors

• Hewlett-Packard Email Mentoring Program Motivating K-12 Students to Excel!
  The HP E-Mail Mentor program provides a professional mentor relationship for each student who desires assistance and encouragement to pursue thier unique interests while gaining critical reading, writing, math, science, and technology skills. The program is also available for teachers who desire help using the Internet resources in the classroom. HP currently has 350 active mentor relationships between HP employees and K-12 students and teachers.
  
• Junior Achievement founded in 1919, volunteers worldwide work with students and with teachers in the classroom as partners.
  
  • Summary - this is the oldest and largest business and economic not-for-profit education organization. All meetings take place in the classroom and face-to-face and aim to help children understand the business world and economics.

  • Useful idea - by following the links for the K-6 Elementary School Program, a teacher can use the subject outline to stimulate ideas for appropriate mentoring topics. These include: Ourselves, Our Families, Our Community, Our City, Our Region, Our Nation, Our World. These topics alone can provide exciting ideas as to what types of mentors to look for and what to discuss with them.

• Trilateral Partnership in Education is a local parnership between Rochester, NY middle and upper schools, Clarkson University School of Business, and area corporations including Xerox, Niagara Mohawk Power, Kraft General Foods and others. Programs take place face -to-face in large conference settings to teach team building skills and other business skills.

• School #43 Business Partnership is a partnership between a Rochester City K-6 school and several local businesses and organizations such as ITT Automotive, Rochester Museum and Science Center, Nazareth College, the local library, and Olin Chemical. A good example of a community/business/school web site.

• A Project of the Massachusetts Software Council, Inc. is sponsored by the software manufacturers of Massachusetts to link the software expertisewith the schools. This is a major initiative of the Massachusetts Software Council to link the expertise of its 1948 software companies and 64,000+ employees with the state's schools. The project assists with technology related projects such as technology planning, technical support and advice, staff training, classroom instruction, mentoring, and other relevent tasks. Currently they are in over 40 school districts working on more than 300 projects.
• Mentors sponsored by Straight Talk about School. This is a project in BETA for students in or out of school. More as the site expands and refines itself. Take their survey and give them a hand in BETA.
• AT&T's learning Network provides an "on ramp" for teachers. It provides support to teachers from teachers in its Online Mentoring program called AskLN. AT&T's obvious connection with the net makes this a great resource.
• Digital Heroes This online mentoring program serves youth involved in PowerUP [http://www.powerup.org], a nonprofit organization working to help America's underserved young people acquire the skills, experiences and resources they need to succeed in the digital age. The Digital Heroes online mentoring program connects youth in PowerUP with employees of America Online (the primary sponsor of PowerUP) and with celebrity "notables" recruited by People Magazine.

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School initiated Mentors

• Partners in Education (PIE) is a project between the Alexandria City Public Schools and the Institute for Defense Analyses.
  
  • Summary - works with "average" students in a tutoring or lecture environment in work development skills.

  • Useful Ideas - A school that is interested in setting up a mentoring program may wish to develop their own "mentoring Web site". This site has excellent examples of online forms to fill out. One is for mentors to fill out if they are interested in participating and another is for the individual student or teacher who is looking for a mentor.

• Pueblo Global Learning Collaboratory
  
  • Summary - a partnership between Longview Elementary school and Phoenix College. Both are inner-city schools.

  • Useful Ideas - The list of goals that this partnership has outlined are worth taking a look at. They are well-defined and comprehensive and include:
    1. develop lasting mentor relationships
    2. develop career goals and education plans
    3. foster life-long learning, develop students' cultural
    4. global and social literacy

• Volunteer Students Tutoring Association is a tutoring and mentor organization started by law students at the University of Michigan. Students in grades 1-12 are tutored one-on-one with school studies by Univ of Mich students.

• Computer Clubhouse @ The Computer Museum in Boston. The Clubhouse is a community educational outreach program of the Computer Museum developed in collaboration with MIT Media Laboratory. The Clubhouse is a learning environment where young learners work with experienced learners. The projects are relevent and exciting as the kids get totally involved in their learning. The staff includes a culturally diverse team of adult mentors. Mentors are coaches, catalysts, and consultants. The Clubhouse follows a 'constructivist' philosophy, encourages youth to work on projects that interest them, creates a sense of community, and is dedicated to offering resources to the community.

• St. Olaf College. Has some good examples of project based interactions between the classroom and their mentors. Also has some examples of e-mail pals.

• Electronic Emissary Initiated by the University of Texas at Austin. Great place to find a mentor and has a huge searchable database of mentors. Volunteers can sign up here too.

• Teachers mentor Teachers This site is magnificent! Teachers with computer skills are asked to serve as summer mentors to teachers who are new to computers. The impetus comes from President Clinton and has been acted upon by Tech Corps. Sign up to be a mentor or a mentee.

• Phoenix Braintrust operates within the Information Technology Management Program at Ecole Phoenix Middle School, Campbell River, BC. It is a collaboration among school/community/business. This is a fine example of how a community educates its children. Watch this program develop. It will be a model.

• Sanchez Elementary School Online Mentoring Program In cooperation with the Virtual Volunteering Project, this program brings together online mentors from all over the U.S. with fourth graders at this elementary school in Austin, Texas. Online activities focus primarily on reading and writing, and on establishing a positive, trusting relationship between online adult volunteers and the students. The program also hopes to increase positive feelings about technology from the point of view of all participants -- students, teachers, mentors and parents. Mentors have been screened via reference checks and online applications; all e-mails from adults are read by a program director before being forwarded to the students, and no "real" e-mail addresses are used (to insure there's no way to communicate outside the program's password-protected interactive web site). Teachers communicate with mentors regularly to suggest topics of discussion with the students, and incorporate the writing of e-mails to mentors into the student's class work and computer lab time.

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Community initiated Mentors

• Testbed is a program which fosters school/community partnerships. The National School Network Testbed sponsors this site. They provide stories of those who are successfully doing forming school/community partnerships. The goal of this site is to provide research, policy decisions, and examples of successful school/community partnership programs.

• Kansas Mentor Project is designed for women.
  
  • Summary- This is a partnership between 47 high schools in Kansas and numerous volunteers. The goal is to enhance the career outlook for women particularly in selecting non-traditional jobs.

  • Useful Ideas - In this site are great sections on What is mentoring? Why Mentor? The benefits of mentoring. There are several suggestions for establishing your own mentoring program. One suggestion that someone may wish to pursue is the development of an online database of people who work on different careers and what they do. They can allow students to contact them via EMail, serve as mentors, or just have a listing if they prefer. There is also a discussion for students on Why choose a mentor and the benefits of non-traditional jobs. Another section discusses what mentors should and should not do. Finally, there is a lengthy list of resources.

• International Tutoring is sponsored by a non-profit organization which provides global tutoring for students world-wide.

• READ*WRITE*NOW is a program about reading partners from the Dept of Ed. They provide activities, supplies, ideas, and organizations if you want to be involved with k-6 kids . 1-800-USA-LEARN will get you a free kit. Last year's Booklet.

• West Virginia Public/Private Partnership with the WV National Guard is a plan to use the National Guard and technology to meet a 100% literacy rate in West Virginia.

• WITI Women in Technology sponsors workshops, conferences, and mentors for young women who plan to move into the business world.

• Telecollaborating Around the World A local site which coordinates community efforts.

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