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This week I had the chance to complete a few chapters of my book that I am doing my book report on; mentoring is something that acts as a learning mechanism. We all had a mentor growing up; a teacher is considered a mentor by passing down information which can benefit the student in their future. A mentor is an individual, usually older, always more experienced, who helps and guides another individual’s development. This guidance is not done for personal gain. I was a mentor ( Big Brother) I enjoyed taking a youngster under my wing and teaching him how to act in public, someone that they can talk to, or even if it’s just helping them with homework.

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So far, I noticed that my mentees are really independent and haven’t really needed my help since the beginning of class. I still find myself reaching out and being a go to person for them if needed. This past week I have been reading my book and learning new things about minorities and their source of help, in neighborhoods and in schools. I learned that it is less likely for a minority male to have a role model/ mentor growing up, which can hinder them in the future.

Start of Book report

For my book report I decided to read and gain a better understanding of a mentor. I had several options to pick from but really decided to read specially “Mentoring young Men of Color.” I also checked out another book along with my main book. I also wanted to read about parenting and how it relates to mentoring. In my opinion being a parent is diffidently a type of mentoring, you are their role model and what they learn is from the parent, so parenting is the first step in mentoring.

Week 4!

This week was a great learning experience. When Roberta visits our class this past Tuesday, I found her methods of picking a specific topic or narrowing our questions down very useful. After class I told her that I never used this technique through out my schooling. It’s funny how some very basic could solve most problems, in this case just choosing a book. I meet with two out of three of my mentees just to touch basis with them and figure out how far they were in their research project. Both of them are still at the beginning stage of their research project, still undecided what they want to do their project I then stepped in and used the Question tool to narrow down their search.

Week 3!

This week was an okay; I got in contact with two out of three of my mentees which we spent an hour or so going over the simple research methods that we learned in class a few sessions’ ago. I briefly gave them a virtual tour of the library, and how to use the search engine on the WWU Library home page. One of my mentees found this overview to be a learning experience, being that she was a sophomore; I could see how and why it was such an educational experience being that she rarely used the Library. I thought that this would be something that they could use for their project and projects in the future; my goal is to pass down whatever knowledge I come across directly to my mentees. As mentioned, in my previous post, I am learning as we go along and this is not only benefiting them but me as well. Hopefully I will be able to contact and meet with all three of my mentees rather than just one or two at a time, I want all three of my mentees to meet one another and use each other as a source of help as well; so that it is not only me giving out information pertaining the research project but them as well.

Advancing the Promotion of Information Literacy Through Peer-led Learning

I believe that these courses should be a requirement for incoming freshmen entering a University. It would be a great way transitioning new students coming from high school into a more challenging and indenpendent environment. If I was giving this opportunity to take certain classes like these as a freshmen in college, I would be more successful in my academics overall. Most individuals that are now seniors are still lacking the knowledge and resources available to them on a daily basis. I can personally say that it was not until spring of 2010 where I taken Library 201 course which opened my eyes to the resources available here in the Western Library. After a few years into college I learned that we have to be proactively and really engage ourselves in a way that can really beneficial and useful from one class to another. Having such tools and basic understanding of how to research and use our surrounding resources could be very helpful but here at Western Washington University it is something less valued and should be taken into consideration for the future students. I really never had a mentore or someone who was able to guide me in a direction of being successful academically while here in college. Relating this to this course to this class (Research Mentoring), I believe that we will in some way be a source of help for our mentees and hopefully learn new things that they can use in the future.