Technology Mentoring Assignment EDEL 590 Lizbeth Martin-Wilson California State University, Fullerton

Who is my mentee? I have been a teaching at my present school for a little over a year, so I am still getting to know my staff and grade level team. The mentee that I chose for this project has a notion that “tech stuff” is just not her thing. She feels that whenever she tries to do something on the computer, nothing goes right and she ends up being extremely frustrated and just gives up. Her lack of self-confidence and her firm belief that she actually has had some type of “technology curse” placed on her is the reason why she was chosen. By nature, she is a competitive, athletic person who I could tell was not a “quitter”. ( Sidenote: I am taking a kickboxing class with her in the evenings and you never, I mean never, want to be her partner ) I thought…if she has this much dedication, and perseverance in her athletic life, she can certainly overcome her fears of crossing over into the 21 st century to become a competent and skilled technology teacher. The point of which I will begin my mentoring will be very basic as my mentee is presently at the Substitution Level in regards to the SAMR model.

The Mentoring Plan I created a needs analysis and asked my mentee what her top 3 things that she would like to learn in regards to technology. We then agreed that we would meet both “formally” and “informally” to address these needs. Since we are upper grade elementary teachers, we get a 40 minute release music break two days a week. We chose to meet on Wednesdays during our music release time. The three areas that my mentee felt she was in need of learning about was integrating technology into our social studies curriculum, utilizing the science curriculum with our subscription to Discovery Education website, and organizing her desktop…either using “Symbaloo” to create a “webmix” or reorganizing her “Favorites” bar. During our initial meeting we also discussed how important is was to remember our “passwords” to the different sites that we use on a daily basis. This seems to be a big management dilemma for many of my staff, including myself, so we started a list of the passwords that she would need to access the sites that we would be working on.

Mentoring Sessions Our first mentoring session, my mentee and I decided we would meet in her room and go over our new digital social studies path that we could use to enhance our social studies curriculum. I thought I had a plan all worked out but as we started to work, side by side, I let my mentee take the reigns. She showed me what she already knew how to do and then I assisted her in taking things further. As you notice in the picture, I do not have my hands on the mouse and I am letting my mentee do the work. This was VERY hard for me not to want to take control. I think in the whole 40 minute session I might have touched the mouse, maybe once or twice. Reflection: During this first mentoring experience, I was surprised at how much I was learning along with my mentee. She was surprised too when I wasn’t sure of the next navigation button to press ( it is actually a new digital system for all of us this year) and she figured it out before I did. I know her confidence was growing, not just by doing it herself, but just because she knew I was there and if the frustration started to set in, she knew she would be able to ask me for help and that was the support that she needed and was seeking. After our initial session, I asked her if she had tried out the site and used it in her lesson and she replied “yes” and it was a success. Session one…done!

Mentoring Sessions cont. ( informal ) The same day that I had my first mentoring session, my mentee asked if I could show her how to upload her students into our math curriculum website so that they would have access to their math book at home. I said “sure” and just thought it would be an “extension” of our mentoring relationship. Well, the word got out that I was going to show her the steps in how to do this and my 4 th grade team all asked if they could join in. The result…a mini “PD” in my room as a result of my mentor/mentee relationship. Everyone was happy they were able to join in and I was especially glad that I could share my knowledge with three instead of just one for this particular task.

More Mentoring Sessions Session 2 For our second formal meeting I actually had my mentee come to my classroom so that I could model a lesson that I had just given the previous day on my SMART board. The lesson was on how to use the digital path of our science book to help reinforce materials that were being taught in the classroom. We went through an entire E-review of one of the lessons and opened up each of the components. After I modeled one of the lessons, my mentee wanted to try to make sure she knew how to access the site and what she needed to do so she repeated what I had shown her to reinforce the steps. Reflection: Overall, this was a pretty easy and successful lesson and my mentee did not have any problem understanding. She informed me that she had her class review the science materials in the computer lab the next day. Session 3 For the last formal session, my mentee wanted a tool to organize the websites that she frequently uses in the classroom. She had seen that I use the web site “Symbaloo” and wanted to try it herself. We worked on her laptop and got her logged into the site. I then started to have her follow the tutorial on how to create a web-mix. I sent her a copy of my web-mix so that she could use it as a guide. Unfortunately, things were not going as planned because we could not upload my web- mix. I believe it has something to do with our district’s filtering system. Looking back, I do remember having to create my web-mix at home because of the same reason. Reflection: One important thing I should have done before this meeting was try out creating a web-mix in our classroom. To problem solve, I had my mentee write down the instructions of how to add websites to the web-mix and she plans on trying it on her own home computer and will let me know if she needs more help.

Overall Reflection/Future Plans In my teaching career, I have held many titles. One of them has been “Master Teacher” I have been a mentor and have had a dozen student teachers who have trained under me. Because of this previous experience, I feel I had an inclination of what this mentoring experience would entail. Whenever you teach a peer, if done correctly, it can not only become a rewarding experience for you, but a reciprocal learning experience as well. As I was teaching and mentoring, I was learning. The experience was a win/win situation for both of us. As the word got out that I was helping out my mentee so much with technology, other teachers on staff were inquiring on what they could do to be a part of this training. This only indicated to me how much teachers are willing, although somewhat scared and reluctant, to enter into this new fascinating world of “teaching with technology”. I know for a fact that I will continue to “mentor” my colleague throughout the year and possibly the years to come, to advance her in the ability to move from the “S” for substitution phase all the way to the “R” for redefinition. Let the journey begin…..