Draft of Letter to Mentors
On behalf of everyone at Chabot, we’d like to thank you for agreeing to serve as a mentor for our new online instructors. We have a record number of proposals for this coming summer and fall, so you may be receiving quite a few requests for mentorship. My goal in this memo is to update you on the mentorship process, to identify the instructors that are eligible for your mentoring, and to provide you with information on how to be paid for your efforts.
Our goal in supporting this mentoring effort is simple: to ensure that our students receive quality online instruction. I’m sure you all remember the trepidation with which you first began to teach online; it’s a very different experience for both students and instructors. We believe that your experience will both support these new online instructors and help ensure that students benefit from that support.
Since we have other resources to provide assistance with Blackboard training, the goal of your work should be to help coach the new instructor on the pedagogy of online teaching (how it differs from classroom teaching; what new techniques must be utilized to maintain contact, encourage interaction, provide support, adequately assess student learning, and improve retention and success; how you can effectively utilize internet resources to actually improve your course vs. its oncampus equivalent, etc.) and how to make a course “student-friendly”.
As a guide to your work, I’ve attached two documents. The first is a Best
Practices document developed by LPC; you can find a version of this on the
BOLT course that we all have access to in Blackboard that provides deeper content links. The second is a guide developed by our library staff on how to design courses that are accessible and encourage quality internet research.
I’ve also attached a list of instructors that are eligible for mentoring. All of them have been provided with a list of all of our mentors, and asked to contact you if they’re interested in working with you on their new course. Remember that you can decline the request if you’re too busy or just don’t see a good fit with the
“mentee”. Please let me know each time you agree to serve as a mentor; we have budget reporting responsibilities, and I need to know what commitments we’ve made.
As a reminder, each “mentee” can receive up to 10 hours of your time, and you’ll be reimbursed for your time at the “Faculty Other” rate. To receive your payment, you’ll need to submit a time sheet (ADD SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS
HERE). You can submit these requests monthly, or wait until you’ve completed all the work.
Please let me know if you have any questions, or any suggestions for this mentorship program.
Jan Novak