Useful material
to support mentoring
We don't want to over-face you with a load of material for the sake of it (although there are some links below if you want them); these are just a few judiciously chosen sources:
What is Mentoring?
A short (3-page) introduction from David Clutterbuck of Clutterbuck Associates—one of the most respected outfits in the field. Other related downloads are available from here.
Mentoring Resources
A page of links to a range of resources (and inevitably other links) on the general field of mentoring. Not education-specific.
And this site contains a cornucopia of mentoring goodies (largely coming from an outdoor education perspective), including specific exercises.
The Reflective Cycle
A commonly used model to structure mentoring conversations--has stood the test of time since Graham Gibbs proposed it in 1988.
There is a useful digest of other approaches here.
But don't get too hung up on all this "reflective" stuff: here is a critical view if it confuses you.
Recent Research
Here is a recent paper on your needs as mentors on PCE programmes, from the Higher Education Academy, (Ingleby 2011)
An Action Maze on Mentoring
Based on a case-study in higher education, and now showing its age, but still interesting. (I see that you may have to re-size your browser window.)
Mentoring Record Form
There isn't one. Deliberately. You have the PPD part of the Professional Practice Learning Contract, and the Learning Itinerary to pace the student's development, and of course the Observation Protocol for discussion of teaching observations, so we are not going to burden you with anything else.
However, you are perfectly welcome to devise your own in conjunction with your mentee—it's an excellent way of learning what mentoring is all about and checking that you share the same understanding of it.
ATHERTON J S (2009) Support site for University of Bedfordshire PCE programme: [On-line] UK: Available: Accessed:
(Note that if you are using Internet Explorer, and it is doing its "nanny" thing, the full reference will not display. There will be a bar across the top of the screen advising you of "blocked content". Click on it and select "Allow blocked content" and confirm in the pop-up box. I know it's a pain, but we're stuck with it.)
Original material © James Atherton: last up-dated 15 July 2009
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