Teacher as mentor

Coach - questionnaire - mentor - intake as a teacher

The chance of adult learners dropping-out decrease when they feel connected to their school, other students and their teacher. Getting to know your students is therefore an important part of your job as teacher.

Not really sure how to get started? This tool provides a handy questionnaire for teachers who are eager to ask the right questions during mentor conversations with their students.

The teacher can use the tool for the first, second and other conversations with his/her own students. In addition to this, some questions (with the do’s and don’ts) are added for bad news conversations.

Before you start:

• Announce the conversations to your students. Explain the purpose of these conversations.

• It is important to use and read available information from the intake files of former school attendance.

• Look for a suitable time and place and think about a useful assignment for the other students.

During the conversations:

• It is important that all the students are asked the same questions, as they will compare them later on.

• Try not to think and act as a teacher but as a mentor. Be understanding and ask further questions.

• If students don't feel comfortable, reschedule the conversation to a later time when they got to know you better.

"When a mentor asks a student a general question like ‘How are you?’, the answer will usually also be very general, saying nothing really. When our teachers started using the questionnaire, they asked more specific questions. This was a trigger for students to really start thinking about their answers, as a result of which they became more explicit and elaborate. The conversations got more in depth through this and were therefore much more helpful and successful."

Frank Kerstens - The Netherlands

Set of mentoring questions for teachers

If you are interested in this tool, you could also be interested in Open mindset.