Essential Question 9

Essential Question 9: How is mentoring adults different from teaching children?
The purpose of mentoring is to provide support, guidance and advice to teachers to enable them to enhance their teaching skills to develop professionally. ("Introduction to supporting," 2018). In my mind I could change just a few words and have the purpose of teaching. They are very similar, but there are many differences when mentoring adults or teaching children.

Adults are more likely to be motivated learners since they are gaining knowledge about how to be more successful at their chosen career. Children usually are there because they have to be and may lose enthusiasm for the subject matter.

Adults tend to be more independent learners and can be left to problem solve and make decisions about the direction of the lesson. In my experiences, children are willing to spend less time working on a problem before asking someone to help them. And many of them do not like open-ended assignments in which they have to make decisions or be creative.

Generally adults can spend more time and engage more deeply in a task than children. Children typically need to be given a variety of activities in short amounts of time to make the most sense of the information.

"The biggest difference between teaching adults and teaching [children] is what the students bring to the classroom. [Children] bring enthusiasm, curiosity and energy, while adults bring life experience. While [children] are still learning about the world around them, adults have already had a lifetime of experiences and have their own ideas and opinions." ("6 Differences," 2017).

Our school is trying something new next year. We will start each day with a common planning period for our middle school and high school teachers. I am really excited for the opportunities to be a mentor and a mentee. "Mentoring can play a critical role in continually improving the professional knowledge and skills that teachers need to instruct and prepare students for the next century." (Koki, n.d.)


Resources:
6 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN TEACHING ADULTS AND YOUNG LEARNERS. (2017, January 16). Retrieved from https://www.theteflacademy.com/blog/2017/01/6-differences-between-teaching-adults-and-young-learners/

Introduction to supporting and mentoring teachers. (2018, November 06). Retrieved from https://englishagenda.britishcouncil.org/continuing-professional-development/teacher-educator-framework/supporting-and-mentoring-teachers/introduction-supporting-and-mentoring-teachers

Koki, S. (n.d.). The Role of Teacher Mentoring in Educational Reform. Retrieved July 10, 2019, from https://www.nmu.edu/Webb/ArchivedHTML/UPCED/mentoring/docs/Role-mentor.pdf

Comments

  1. Dr. FJuly 17, 2019 at 12:44 PM

    Good blog. Adults also have experience behind them, so they have more to draw on when asked to do different tasks. Young people need more direction, but that will help them gain the experience to be better when they are adults. It is the cycle, I guess.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Essential Question 4

Essential Question 4: What does the way you play have to do with embracing change and how does this impact you as a professional? "In a world of near-constant flux, play becomes the strategy for embracing change, rather than a way for growing out of it." (Brown & Thomas, 2011, p. 48). As I reflect on my teaching, the moments I felt I had prepared the best lessons happen to be the moments that I prepared the least.  Not to say that I didn't do my research or really think about the objectives I was trying to teach, but I was willing to give my students the tools to complete a lab without knowing whether or not it would work.  Instead, I worked side-by-side with them to find out what was going to happen.  We tinkered together and learned together.  Unfortunately, more often I find myself expecting my students to give me a specific answer or outcome and I don't take time to include the element of play.  There are many times that my students ask if they ...
Read more

Essential Question 8

Essential Question 8: What strategies do you use that are related to your “moral purpose”? How do these contribute to your overall leadership? "Leading with moral purpose means having a commitment to making a difference in the lives and outcomes of students as a result of their experiences at school." (Bezzina, 2007)  While I formally teach science, I frequently make my students aware that my job isn't to make sure that they know the element symbol of gold, but rather that they can grow into successful adults that positively contribute to society.  "Moral purpose is about both ends and means. In education, an important end is to make a difference in the lives of students. But the means of getting to that end are also crucial." (Fullan, 2001, p.26)  There are two main strategies I use to encourage my students to be their best selves along the way: modeling and communicating.  Modeling :  If I have learned anything from being a mother, it is that childre...
Read more

Essential Question 3

ESSENTIAL QUESTION 3: How different is your current classroom from the one in which you learned when you were a student? I was in seventh grade during the crisis of Y2K. While I had no idea what was happening, I did know there was a chance that the world was going to end! Really though, I was in school during at the beginning of the internet age and it was a frightening time. Backing up a year to sixth grade, I can recall our classes going to the library and taking turns using the two computers to type things into this new thing called the internet. It is crazy now to think about the overwhelming feelings of uncertainty and nervousness I had as I look at my four year old daughter who just tells me to "look in up on the internet" or "ask Alexa".  My, how times have changed. In high school, I got my first cell phone. It was a Tracfone that allowed me to make phone calls and text using the number buttons and corresponding pushes to get the specific letter you...
Read more