- From the group session on 26.09.19
- Being fun
- Joko and Anna were super engaged and interested (from the beginning) and that helped
- Passion about what people are teaching - e.g. Oliver in React week
- Reading through the code, providing insightful feedback. Being engaged in helping.
- Writing out key learning outcomes or notes on the whiteboard for the week
- Being well prepared!!
- Looking at presentations beforehand
- Taking note of the things that you struggle with while revisiting a workshop
- Being thorough in code review
- Telling you how to get to the answer, rather than what the answer actually is
- Taking the time to really understand what they mentees have done
- Pointing people in the right direction to find the answer
- Trying to keep seeing the bigger picture while helping people. Does this specific bug need to be fixed, or does the code need to be restructured?
- Asking mentees to talk through what they've been doing first
- For students, commenting as you go helps to explain things when asked. Mentors can support students in commenting more from the start
- Encouraging students to go for walks, take breaks, bring SNACKS
- Being open to questions, how many solutions are available, and providing different examples
- Being mindful about what questions are beneficial to everyone and need to be answered in a group, and what is more individual. Mindfulness about the goals of the session (learning outcomes)
- Knowing the learning outcomes of each workshop better
- helps to deal with not finishing workshops
- Setting an example with your behaviour
- Being available/approachable (and that being reflected in your demeanour)
- being aware that it can be distracting to be chatting with people at the front of the class
- Asking to cast tasks that were unfinished and finish them as a group, instead of showing something that is completely done
- There are no stupid questions
- Being assertive with timing!!
- Asking questions related to learning outcomes at the end of a workshop!
- SNACKS
- Trying to know when less is more - when you have to leave someone to try some things vs explanining it in too many different ways
- Sometimes overexplaining can be more confusing than helpful.
- Encourage people to always pair during workshops and learning week projects
- Trying to be aware of general wellbeing of the group
- General tip for projects at the beginning of projects.
- E.g. before api project: "Be sure to look into how back end and front link up".
- It's okay not to know the answer as a mentor!!
- Sharing resources
- Showing examples of what you did for the project in your cohort
- Make sure that people know that they don't need to finish the project - look back at the learning outcomes
- Distilling the main goals of each project and communicating that to make sure that people
- checking in that groups aren't getting distracted
- particularly during the planning phase of the project
- Communicating when you're going to be late, when you have an interview etc
- Being punctual!!!
- Giving constructive feedback in presentations
- encouragement as well as suggestions
- Being assertive about asking people to cast
- Spending time exploring students repos in order to provide good feedback
- Commenting on specific lines
- using "you'll learn that later" or saying "this will be useless once you learn x"
- asking "why are you using x" - feels very patronizing
- Rushing through codealongs too much
- useful to have one person on the codealong and another in the class
- When people felt like mentors weren't engaged/weren't available. E.g. when everyone was out of the room
- Being mindful when you're bored
- Making sure that you speak loudly enough to be heard at the back
- Reference document for previous projects would be helpful, .e.g. to use as examples
- Could be helpful to agree to a code of conduct as mentors