43
1st July – 11th July 2016
Outcomes SWOT Analysis Mentoring system: Strengths
Weaknesses
• The students trust the teacher and believe that what they are teaching is true; • Teacher is a professional, they can also help the student to schedule their time; • The mentor has a lot of experience and a broad knowledge in their expertise area; • The information that is being delivered to the students is uniformed, once the same teacher is speaking to a lot of students; • It’s more reliable having a mentor than having another teacher to teach the student; • Pedagogical approach
• Method is less flexible, the University schedule is tight, however it doesn’t take into account their opinions; • The professor doesn’t care so much if the student understood or not; • If the teacher doesn’t have good communication skills, it can cause some misunderstandings between the information that they are transmitting and the information that the students are receiving; • Many students don’t ask questions because they fear of the reaction of their teachers; • There is some hierarchy, usually the teachers feel they are better than the students; • Social distance between professor and the student; • The mentors are not trained, usually they are PhD students
Opportunities
Threats
• Teacher is an expert, they can summarise the information, allowing the students to learn faster; they have a wide range of knowledge, because of that they can clarify any doubts • If the mentor has a similar age as the student, then the system becomes similar to the peer to peer support; • Teachers have contacts with companies, this way they are able to create career opportunities for the students; • Students have the opportunity to learn and leave their comfort zone; • Students can get used to the formal communication used in the society by speaking with professors; • The mentor is an expert, they can bring new perspectives to motivate students; • The mentors know how to interact with the students
• If the teachers didn’t receive training to be a mentor the system can fail; • Some students don’t like to deal with professors, usually if they are shy; • The universities are not supporting these teaching methods; • Insecure students do not ask questions and do not understand the whole lecture; • Through the mentoring the teachers get to know the students and during the evaluation process they might be partial; • Good answers are not guaranteed