One thing that I did to help push students to think deeper was to ask guiding questions. While I was working in the WEC, an important part of giving writing support is helping the students while they do the work revising their paper. When they do the work revising their paper, they are learning and gaining a deeper understand of the writing content. Additionally, in order for them to think deeper and make their paper better, asking questions to challenge their thinking will also help them learn. For example, asking students the simple question "Why?" allows for them to process, learn, and understand the content they are writing about.
-Kira Clark
When being a mentor for a language course, it is really difficult to try to help the student come to a realization, because they simply don’t yet know the words. You have to find a balance between giving them the necessary information and getting at what they already know. Rather than just giving them a word, way to pronounce something, or a verb conjugation, try to give them a rule to follow or explain why something works a certain way. This will allow the student to be able to apply what they learn to many situations instead of just that one.
A lot of times, a student would be struggling because they wanted to say something in the target language, but they didn’t know how. Since using online translators is discouraged, they often felt stuck. I would ask them to think in English for a minute and figure out if there was another way to say what they wanted to. Oftentimes, it was this second way, which was simpler, and used words they had already learned, which they used. This is a great way to have the student practice using the words they learn in class, because they associate them with English, and find them to be relevant.
One time, when translating something from the target language into English and a student got stuck, I asked them to look for the words they did know. It was great to see them recognize a word and say, “Oh! We learned that when…” Looking for individual words is far less intimidating than trying to translate a whole paragraph, and a little bit of understanding can go a long way.
- Rachel Brinkman
So far I have mentored for many different classes ranging from 9th Grade PE, Algebra, History, English, and special learning for freshman. One thing that each of these classes have in common is that they all have kids in them that are struggling in some way or another. Even if on the surface it may seem like everything is going okay for the kids in each class, they can all use help in some way, whether it is motivation to get their assignments done on time, trying harder to be present in a class, or just having someone that can help them work at their pace through the problem at hand. In each of these situations, I have found that the most important thing is to be friends with the kids that need help. With almost every kid I have helped while mentoring, I have done this and it shows them that someone cares and is rooting for them to do good, which in turn makes them try and want to succeed that much more. The best part about mentoring is watching the student that you are helping use the strategies you worked through together to get the right answer by themselves.