Posted: September 6th, 2015

Mentoring.

Rationale:

One of the expectations of a graduate is that they will assist with development and education of students within the workplace. This can seem quite daunting especially to those newly qualified.

This assignment involves you in planning an induction programme designed for a year one student about to enter the clinical environment for the first time.

 

Introduction:

For this assignment you will be expected to develop an induction programme that is able to be conducted via email to assist a first year student as they prepare for their first clinical experience.

Remember at this stage the first year student will not have had any formal input relating to their specialisation. Please do not make any assumptions about the amount of information that the student may have regarding their specialisation or the clinical environment in particular.

The first year student will be randomly allocated to you. For the remainder of this information the first year student will be referred to as the ‘learner’.

 

There will be four phases to this assignment but do not be put off by this as it is designed to make it a little easier for you by applying a step approach to the process. The phases are summarised in the table below and explained in the following text.

 

Phase number	Process covered
Phase one	Planning
Phase two	Implementing
Phase three	Assessing student learning
Phase four	Evaluating your role and experiences of the processes.

 

 

Phase 1: Planning

This is the planning phase.

It is important to plan your activities carefully and allow time for them to be completed and questions to be asked and answered. Think carefully about your own timeline for this activity. Remember that both the first year student and you will have commitments outside of the Medical Radiation Programme that may impact on the time available for this activity and the time taken to achieve the tasks you have set.

 

Consider the following basic questions:

• What will be the better way to approach this task in the email environment?
• What type of task lends itself to the email environment?
• Is rapport with the learner important to the completion of the task?
• How do you establish rapport with the learner, given that this task needs to be conducted via email?
• What does the learner need to know?
• How can they learn it?
• How long will it take to learn the information or complete the activity?
• How will we know when the learning has been achieved?
• Is there a need for follow up to the task after the student has been into the clinical environment?
• Is there value in continuing the relationship beyond the clinical induction activity?

 

There are no right or wrong answers to these questions, they are just some questions for you to consider as you begin the planning associated with the induction task.

 

 

The following table may assist you to organise your activities:

Key Details	Outline the duration, type of activity, etc
Goals	Outline the purpose, overall aim and rationale for activity. Identify any stages the learner must move through to achieve the stated aim.
Learning Objectives	Identify what the learner will know, understand and/or be able to do as a result of the learning activity. Keep these simple for your first attempt at this type of activity.
Pre-requisites	Identify the knowledge and/or skills required by the learner to accomplish the learning. (Think about levels of learner experience here. What would you expect the learner already to know?)
Timeline	Identify the time required for successful completion of the activity. It is good practice to develop a timeline associated with your activity.
Activity Description	Describe the key points of the activity. A step-by-step approach often works best. It may assist you to think in terms of: introduction, main activity and any procedures to be followed; concluding activities and remarks; any follow-up.

 

 

Phase 2: Implementing

This is the implementation phase where you will be in contact with your allocated learner and assisting them to work through your induction exercise(s).Try to keep your induction exercise(s) simple and stress-free for the learner to complete in a 1 hour timeframe, so the 4^th year student can then move onto the next stage of the assignment.

 

You will need to be in regular contact with the learner during this phase as you assist them with the exercises and/or provide feedback for them relating to their progress with the activities you have designed. You may need to prompt the learner if they are not responding to your emails.

Phase 3: Assessing student learning

You will need to develop a brief assessment task to ensure you have achieved your intended learning experiences. This does not have to be a complex assessment task but it will need to assess the learner’s understanding of the information included within your induction exercise. It will also need to be administered in the online environment.

Report:

Phases 1-3 will be explained and analysed within a report. You will need to explain the process of developing, delivering and assessing your induction activities. The explanation should also include analysis of the process to this point and it should contain enough detail that the reader would be able to replicate the activities.

You may need to include copies of email content within your appendices or the report but remember that you should de-identify these before including them. The first year student you have been working with should not be able to be identified from your report.

For your information a mark sheet is available on the ‘learnonline’ page for Professional Entry Practice 1.

 

 

Phase 4 (Oral Presentation): Personal evaluation

Having considered your student’s learning it is now time to evaluate the session from your own perspective as the person delivering the induction exercise.

Develop a brief evaluation/refection tool suitable for you to use with this activity.

• How did you begin the process?
• What assisted you with this process?
• What resources did you utilise to develop your induction activity? (Remember to think about resources in the broadest definition of the word.)  What have you concluded from this process?
• What will you take forward into your professional practice?

 

 

Please note:

Phase 4 will be delivered by means of an oral presentation during the pre-clinical workshop for PEP2.

You will need to develop a PowerPoint presentation, of no more than 10 minutes including questions, that outlines the evaluation phase of your mentoring assignment.

 

You will need to explain your evaluation process and what resulted from it. You will also need to consider what you would improve if you repeated the induction exercise and what you have learnt that you will take.

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