Mentor Training: Prepare for your First Meeting

Mentor Training Mentor Training: Prepare for your First Meeting

PREPARE FOR YOUR FIRST TEAM MEETING IN 5 STEPS​

  • Pick a location/online platform to meet
  • Create an agenda
  • Review the activities
  • Keep your team informed
  • Get excited!

USE THIS RESOURCE TO PREPARE FOR YOUR FIRST MEETING

The Mentor Curriculum will be your best resource to prepare for your first, and all future meetings!  The Mentor curriculum is a Mentor project management tool.

Each unit of the student curriculum has this companion guide for mentors to help you feel more confident and prepared to support your team. Learn more about the Mentor curriculum ->

DECIDE WHERE TO MEET

In-Person Meeting

Find a central and public location that is accessible to all team members, for example: public libraries, community centres, coffee shops, etc.

Have at least one of the parents remain for the meeting

Send a calendar invitation, with the parents included, that includes the address of the meeting location

Determine a video conferencing software that will let you meet for the determined time

common video conferencing tools have time limits on the free version:

-Google Meet 1 hour

-Zoom 40 minutes

Send a calendar invite with the parents included and include the meeting link

Some teams opt for a hybrid meeting schedule, which means that sometimes they meet in person, and sometimes they meet virtually. 

It is important to communicate clearly so all team members know when and where they are meeting. Do not assume that students all have access to technology at home. Make sure everyone has a way to access the virtual meeting before scheduling.

Discuss meeting options (click the titles above to learn more) with your team and agree on a time and place.

Send the team an invite so they can refer to it when they need information about the meeting make sure to include parents so they can help the students remember include the location.

Send the agenda with a reminder (24 hours in advance) of when and where the meeting will be.

CREATING SAFE LEARNING SPACES

Below are some important guidelines to review prior to meeting with your team:

  • Review Technovation’s  Volunteer Code of Conduct. 
  • Review our safety page.
    You will find resources for:
    • Creating a safe learning environment
    • Internet safety & privacy
    • Child Safety 
    • Anti-discrimination

Learn more about how to minimize prejudice through Pepperdine University’s Masters of Psychology research.

MEETING PLANNING TIPS

girl working on craft project

Logistics

  • Have team members confirm that they will be attending
  • Have a backup way to communicate with your team
  • Designate a meeting moderator – pick someone different each time
  • Practice online tools before starting a virtual meeting 
girls coding

Collaboration

  • Use free tools like Google Docs for real time collaboration
  • Share your screen in virtual meetings and make sure everyone can see the activities during in-person meetings
  • Encourage students to bring tools to engage and collaborate (ie. notebook, laptop, etc.)
girls getting help at computer

Team Building

  • Start the meeting with Ice Breaker questions to get students comfortable
  • Make it fun with themed meeting, games, etc. 
  • Have everyone take turns speaking, including your quieter sutdents. 
  • Be a positive, encouraging voice and provide constructive feedback when needed

REVIEW UNIT 1 CURRICULUM

Our online curriculum is designed to equip students with cutting edge skills through project based learning.

  • 45 lessons in 12 units with 60+ hrs of content
  • Step-by-step guide to build projects
  • Self-paced and flexible design

The curriculum can be adapted to fit within a variety of timelines. We recommend that students are given 40-60 hours of time to use the curriculum and build their projects.

Lessons include:

  • Videos
  • Interactive features
  • Activities with worksheet guides
Access Student Curriculum

MAKE AN AGENDA

Use the Mentor Curriculum to get comfortable with the goals of the activities. You'll also see if you need to prepare any documents or slides.

FACILITATE YOUR FIRST MEETING

You want to set a standard for the next 12 weeks, where the team will feel safe and comfortable, and trust one another. Below are activities to include in your first meeting: 

The internet is a great resource for a wide range of icebreaker activities

Go through submission guidelines and key dates

    • This helps the team understand what they will be building and the potential pacing of the program

Pick a video(or two!) from the app gallery to watch 

    • This show girls what they are capable of doing, what problems have been solved by other teams, what they are working towards

This agreement will help you and your team openly talk about: 

  • expected behaviors of other team members
    • of their mentor(s)
    • mentor(s)’s expectations of the students
  • scheduling
  • time commitment
    • be honest about how much time you can commit to mentoring
  • communication tools you all will use

Use the Mentor Copy of this agreement for guiding questions to support this process. 

The completed agreement does not need to be sent in to Technovation.

Go through the content in Unit 1 of the curriculum

Guide your team through completing each activity

  • Avoid giving immediate solutions when students are stuck on a concept. Instead, ask questions that guide them toward finding the answers themselves.
  • You are learning alongside the students. It is OK for you not to have all of the answers about the program as you get started! 
  • Recap the key goals that the team was able to achieve.

 

  • Assign the tasks to team members that need to be complete before the next meeting. Reminder: multiple team members can work together on a single activity.

 

  • Confirm a consistent time to meet in the future, so students can expect the meeting and are less likely to miss it

FOR FUTURE MEETINGS

  • Encourage students to send you updates of their work in advance so you are prepared to give feedback during your next team meeting

  • Focus your efforts! Determine what students need the most help with and what they already know

  • Embrace failure and mistakes, and turn them into learning moments. These will lead to breakthroughs and discoveries!

  • Send reminders about upcoming meetings and tasks that need to be done before the next meeting.

I still have a question

You can always reach out to Technovation’s Volunteer Engagement Team on Slack or at [email protected].

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