Macedonian Mentoring Network

WORKSHOP 2, 5th April 2024, online

WORKSHOP 3, 15th June 2024

WORKSHOP 4, 24th August 2024

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WORKSHOP 2, 5th April 2024, online

SIRPing with Emi

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Around 40 participants took part in today’s workshop; absences were due to overlapping classes or illness. The guiding aims for this workshop were the following:

to consolidate the group by enabling contact and sharing, which was one of the main shared goals expressed in Workshop 1

to consolidate and deepen the group’s previous (SIRP) learning, i.e. the educator role

to support reflection on other mentor roles

to help the group process their mentoring experiences before engaging in new mentoring experiences leading up to Workshop 3.

Session 1

In the first session, we said our hellos, shared our expectations of today’s workshop and discussed the group’s experiences of mentoring and being mentored, both by human mentors and by Noticing.

The above bookmark (”Human to human is mentor”) is a reminder of the potential for everyone to act in a mentoring role, helping someone else process their experience. The bookmark was designed before AI became ubiquitous. Judging from the positive experiences of using Noticing, as reported in Slack, there is a case to be made about its power to facilitate professional development, despite some limitations. See Recording 1 in

Recordings

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Session 2

In this session, we had another go at using SIRP aka Five Steps (thanks to Emi, for kindly volunteering a teaching story - see notes in

SIRPing with Emi⁠

), one step at a time, followed by a group discussion. With so many teachers in the room and a very reflective ‘mentee’, this session spans Recordings 2-4 - see

Recordings

⁠

Successes included:

wonderful questions from the group to elicit more detail about what happened

a range of possible explanations at Step 2

a wealth of suggestions at Step 5, following Emi’s invitation to the group to help.

The main challenges appeared to be:

a lengthy Step 1 to help us create an intricate mental video of what happened, though it turned out to be time well invested because it helped inform the following steps

Step 3 and Step 5 content being suggested before exploring possible explanations at Step 2

identifying useful literature at Step 3

jumping in to help with ideas before being invited.

All very natural to expect as we develop to use SIRP more skilfully!

Session 3

In this final session, we brainstormed example behaviours of the five main mentor roles as proposed by Malderez (2023). The aim of this activity was to raise awareness about the complexity of supporting teacher learning and the many ways in which we can help each other develop.

Our ideas so far are in the following Padlet, which remains open for you to add to as you learn more about mentoring:

Padlet

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See Recording 5 in

Recordings

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NOTE: As some of you, in your educator role, are helping your ‘mentees’ plan a lesson, please see the Pre-lesson mentorial protocol in

Angi Malderez (2023)

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pp. 81-83.

What’s next?

Participants interested in having their project experiences featured in a joint publication to continue making note of their reflections, in our Slack discussions or elsewhere, ready to submit their first drafts for peer review by 1st July 2024. See more information on this in

Publication⁠

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Due to some participants being unable to attend Workshop 3 on the date we initially advertised (28th June) due to summer camp activities usually commencing around 20th June, we rescheduled Workshop 3 for 15th June (Saturday) from 10am at Blaze Koneski Faculty of Philology.

Participant reflections on Workshop 2

Participants seemed to benefit from engaging in teamwork to solve problems, realising that they are not on their own in their day-to-day professional struggles, seeing that doing the Five Steps can be a time-consuming process and experiencing a group (30+) Five Steps process.

Participants didn’t quite like that the workshop was on a working day and online, which resulted in tiredness and partial experiencing of the process for some, and that most of the time was spent on a single episode from the classroom. One participant felt alienated as they found they didn’t quite share the perspectives on teaching of the majority of the group.

All participants suggested they’d benefit from support with the literature.

Below is a selection of quotes to illustrate some of the above points:

I would love this project to really get into practice and to help the majority of participants to stay as enthusiastic as I met them during these two workshops. I wouldn't like this beautiful experience to become just a memory with no real realization. I met some wonderful teachers and students here and they gave me such positive vibes in a period when I was really disappointed by the indifference shown among teachers in general.

It is always great to talk to teachers and share teaching related concerns and worries. Thus, we collaborate towards reaching a mutual goal of success, learn from experience and even find some peace of mind when we realize that we are not alone in this highly challenging and demanding profession.

I would say that the mentorial on this workshop was far more eye-opening for me compared to the one I saw on Workshop 1. I became aware of some many important aspects for both the mentee and the mentor during the mentorilal following the 5-steps-model. I realized that it might be exausting, and slow, that there are so many things to be considered before reaching a conclusion/ agreement/ next steps to be implemented.

I am struggling to keep my mouth shut and not offer my opinion/ ideas to the mentee without being invited. Also, how about creating a poster with DOs and DON'Ts for both mentor and mentees in the 5 Steps model. Maybe having the poster in front of me all the time might be helpful until I become more experienced in the implementation of the model.

Participant reflections on Workshop 2

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