A mentor is “someone who can hold a mirror up to us” (Abbott and Been). Someone with experience, knowledge, wisdom. The mentorship relationship allows for shared learning. A place for non judgmental observations about goals and performance, between mentor and mentee. A generative learning partnership that has the potential to shape the craft and culture that informs instructional designers practice.
Some of my mentorship experience comes from pre-service teacher education. I think that this tried and tested enculturation model, that works in schools, is a model that digital educators might consider. For anyone who has been taught be a student teacher, they would recognize the structure. A pre-service teacher is are paired with a ‘mentor’ at school. A knowledgeable, experienced, proficient educator is tasked with gentle guidance, prompting post class debriefs and reflections and offering their own practices and skills as a model.
Open educationalists in South African might look for a similar mentorship relationships. Groups that work in the open might consider ways of making links to respected and knowledgeable “contractors” who are able and willing to work with and alongside less technically experienced colleagues or practitioners. Whether offering practical advice, encouragement, or enablement, as their mentees become more capable and confident with media and the message. Soon the aspiring instructional designer will gains greater skill and self-assurance.
Mentorship really seems to works when the values between the mentor and mentee overlap. When they both espouses a particular cause or commit to a similar vision. Many times the mentors are volunteers and the reward for effort is not financial. Participation is primarily intrinsic, and motivation emerges because of a commitment to each other and a shared mission. Many mentors occupy roles that blurs boundaries between their professional role and a support role. These are people who can offer insight when they have traversed typical borders (between their profession, administration and management).
I’ve been wondering whether online mentorship can help good critical thinkers get better, support process improvements, build confidence and share implicit knowledge and expertise?
A few years ago, Anelda (from Talarify) invited me to an event entitled The ESCALATOR virtual Computational Research and Open Science Community Mentorship Indaba. She was working on the development of a “champions network” to grow a community of practice around digital and computational skills amongst South African humanities and social sciences researchers and students. Her intention was to discover more about informal capability mechanisms in Africa, and so she invited experienced mentorship programme practitioners to share their operational knowledge. And I was invited to participate.
Igor (Open Education Global & OE4BW Advisory Board member) and I presented about Mentor Recruitment, Support & Reward Strategies in OE4BW. We were one of the 8 programmes from a totel of 18 participants and what a fascinating experience it was, learning about mentorship activities across the African continent . Each programme had the opportunity to address a specific topic that had been allocated. The presentations were divided into focus areas, and a discussion followed the presentations.
The Indaba was followed by an invitation from Anne (from Tlarify) to participate in co-wrtiting an academic paper entitled “Ten simple rules for setting up a mentorship programme” for PLOS, and their Ten Simple Rules collection. This was a collaborative writing process with authors drawn from many of the projects that presented earlier on. Our activities included a clustering process, a sequence of drafts, peer reviews and comments. It was a very positive experience.
I’m a person who still sees digital as a means to allow access to high-quality educational experiences and open education resources (OER). Quality open education resources and practices depend on informed and talented people who are committed to an open vision. People who can identify and address barriers to this goal. For three years, I’ve been a part of Open Education for a Better World (OE4BW) – a tuition free international online membership programme – intended to create a more personal approach towards building OER that can inform, educate and present value in new way. I’ve also recently been associated with Open Life Sciences (OLS) and a not-for profit programme called Open Seeds. This is an organization dedicated to capacity building and diversifying leadership in research worldwide. It’s values are inclusive, transparent and visible. They see a future where research is accessible and equitable for everyone.
These organizations have an international footprint, and I do appreciate their desire to work internationally. Their example has inspired me, but local mentorship relations are also important. The DH-OER project that we finished in 2023 was a great example of digital mentorship. If you really want to transfer discipline or job-specific knowledge from one person to another. Then you have a recognized local showing a willing local how its done.
References
Abbott, C., & Been, L. E. (2017). Strategies for transforming a classroom into a brave and trusting learning community: a dialogic approach. Teaching and Learning Together in Higher Education, 1(22), 3.
Footnote
This blog post is the second part of my response to CSET 2025 (Critical studies of education and technology: an invitation to connect). Here is my first mentorship post. Am trying to link my mentorship experiences together to my answer. A third post might still appear (who knows).