Traits of the 3 M's
Please discuss some traits you think would be valuable to Model, Mentor and Monitor to the students.
Each day we are interviewing for our jobs. That means as managers and leaders we model, mentor, and monitor our own behaviors and decisions.
Model: Dressing for success everyday shows how much you value your appearance and how students and perspective student will view you and respect you.
Mentor: Starting with a vision and plan is really important for success. Having regular temperature checks to see where you are at with your goal is important in order not to loose sight of your ultimate goal. This is very true with students graduating or having his or her business.
Monitor: Monitoring you behavior and decision is very important for the success of a campus, students, and business. Having an competitive edge is how most successful business and students obtain goals. Monitoring your plan of actions and your monitoring your behavior also helps determine your goal.
Model, Mentor and Monitor can best be applied to also engender self-efficacy.
With my students I ask each what their goal is upon graduation. If they claim to have none I give them "entrepreneur". Then I show the students how the coursework is like showing them where to find success.
Model - Relate to them how opening my own business can make me a larger success than being a 'regular IT guy" buy sharing my business plan as well as some personal sucesses and failures.
Mentor - In their virtual start-up I get them to apply learned techniques to build their knowledge base and use that to get more customers or work with more customers in the same time frame.
Monitor - through strict attendance, no "giving of grades" and adherence to a policy of haivng the students revise each assignment until it is 100% correct keeps the student at the level that the outside business world demands.
I feel like we need to let the students know that we truly care about their success and their well being.Most important, treat students like human beings, not just a number.
You have it upon one of the toughest things we have to deal with as career college faculty members. We have to strike some sort of balance to help students manage all they have to do inside and outside of school.
My experience is that students will usually meet the challenges we set out for them if they enjoy the atmosphere of the campus and feel that the people there really have their best interest at heart. Keep challenging them, but make sure they have some successes to build on.
We need rules and policies that allow us to be flexible, but do not reward behaviors we do not want.
You raise a very intriguing question. There is a delicate balance that should be maintained. Could we rephrase the question to say," what is the purpose of monitoring?" If we challenge the student too much, they become afraid of learning and we drive them away. If we are too accommodating, they will not learn enough to succeed because we have not prepared them adequately to achieve their goals. I would look at another dimension to answer this question. It deals with the dimension of "rate of learning". There are a great variety of abilities and motivations. Therefore we must first entice and encourage the student to learn at their own pace and ability. Once we capture their imagination, we can demand more from them (rate). Once we get them thirsty for knowledge, they will drink more. You can’t know their level of success, if we do not monitor or rate their progress.
There is a Modeling component with the students seeing (and feeling) the satisfaction from having someone showing interest in them, repeatedly. It certainly can lead to a Mentoring relationship with your group of 5 students. I think the area we struggle with most is with Monitoring. On the one hand we have been afraid that we will chase students way if we make their training too difficult, requiring too much from them, etc. But maybe by not doing that we are helping them to fail in the long run.
Good point Lou Anne. We are there to nurture and facilitate student's learning. If respect them, they will maybe return the respect, and learn in the process.
Peter,
Thank you for this post. You are absolutely correct. We cannot tolerate faculty members who are disrespectful or demeaning toward students. Our student-customers are not always right, but they are always our student-customers
I think mentoring also means protecting the dignity of students even if they did fail to put enough effort into their work. I should never behave in a manner that would take an individual's dignity away not matter how poor they perform. The job is not as much to be a judge, but more to be a coach, monitor and encourager. If an instructor feels that they need to demean a person because of their work, they should not be teaching. Maybe they need a sabbatical
or are burned out with teaching. But ultimately we need to treat each student as if it where also the first time to share our knowledge.
Much like the 3R's the 3M's are essential for today's students. Although the three M's stand for Modeling, Mentoring, and Monitoring, they can be thought of in a broader sense. For example, they can be utilized as an opportunity to teach socialization, which the student of today, or at least those that attend the university of which I'm employed seem to need. As stated in our reading material, our behaviors and actions can speak louder than our words. We need to be aware of what we’re modeling and recognize as role models, we’re always “on stage.” While modeling socially acceptable behaviors, it is important to also model expected classroom behaviors. Previously learned behaviors that may have been appropriate in high school are not always appropriate in college. This is equally true outside of the classroom too, for example wearing close toed shoes to meet OSHA requirements within the building or taking their hat off at the door.
To model means to demonstrate through our behaviors appropriate ways to act and accomplish tasks. To mentor is to encourage the student to try the task themselves as we guide them. If a behavior or skill has been modeled well, the student learning the task/skill should be able to learn it easier than if it was not modeled well or at all. However, patience is needed as each learner has their own style of learning. Thus, repetition may be needed and depending on the learner this may mean a lot of repetition. As the student attempts to learn the modeled behavior or task, it is important the mentor reward or be supportive of each step in the student’s learning process. This may mean the mentor may need to model the behavior differently in a way that better suits the learning style of the learner or repeatedly give kudos as the student progresses.
Monitoring can be seen from different facets as well. Following up with students regarding their homework, coursework and grades is important. Holding a student accountable for not completing their work or meeting the requirements of the course is very important. In doing so, it allows the instructor to encourage/motivate the student, empower the student to complete the work or to do better, allow for an opportunity to re-teach an area a student is not grasping, as well as reward good work. Personnel who are not in the classroom can monitor students by enforcing the dress code and school policies. Another way non-instructional personnel can monitor a student is by getting to know the students well enough to recognize when a positive accolade may be what they’re lacking to get motivated. Asking a student how they’re doing is a way of showing you care and may help the student open up and be willing to talk to the school’s counselor. Trying to connect with students, even by a friendly greeting, can make a difference and help retain that student.
think that students need to see taits like genuineness, resiliency, compassion, and such. When we assign students to mentors, this is a job. A job can be carried out in many ways. Genuineness means that the mentor has a sincere interest in the person and in other people in the organization. Students know if the relationship is not true. They know if you ask how they are and you don't really mean it. Resiliency is demonstrated when you are willing to stay with the person through any situation, you remember what their issue is and keep that connection. Compassion is critical to everything. It is just too easy to judge a person.
I'm glad you mention mistakes because how we handle mistakes makes a huge difference as to what students learn. If we look at the Transactional Analysis we see the ego states - child, parent, adult. It is easy to treat students like a punishing parent, particularly when they have crossed a boundary, broken a rule, not lived up to your expectations. The punishing parent uses the "should" word often. To stay in the adult and help the student stay in the adult teaches the student something about life and how to handle it. The punishing parent diminishes a student's spirit.
Excellent response on Modeling and Mentoring. The Monitoring part is just following up and holding them accountable.
I think being punctual and in attendance everyday is very important to show the students that punctuality and attendance are expected of them.
Also, modeling attention to detail and thoroughness. For example, I don't let students slide when they forget some minor portion of an assignment. Next time, they pay closer attention to the directions.
I believe that people become what they most admire. In that belief when they admire a teacher or someone who is successful then they will strive to become like that person. So in Modeling we need to make sure we give them the best possible model of how a successful person should be. When mentoring we need to give them our all so that they can understand the information we are trying to instill. Monitoring can be as easy as taking the time to stop and speak with a student and ask them questions that pertain to them so that they know someone cares.
This is a great example of being an "Intelligent Heart."
By giving your students your complete attention, your belief in them, your understanding of where they are in their 'yesterday, today, and tomorrow' and allowing them to question, I believe they will excede their own expectations. Realizing that you don't have all the anwers allows you to expand and strieve to find them and therefore, excede your own expectations.
ATTENTION does equal RETENTION!!!
You also sound like an Intelligent Heart!
