Mentorship in practice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Mentorship in practice - Essay Example A mentoring relationship then develops over time, during which the mentee’s needs changes as well as the nature of the mentoring relationship. The mentor is aware of such changes and adjusts the kind of attention, advise, assistance and motivation he provides. Mutual respect, trust, understanding and empathy are values embodied by an effective mentoring relationship (http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/mentor/1.html). Learning in a mentoring relationship is not one-way. Both parties benefit from it - the mentee, for obvious reasons of imbibing wisdom from the mentor, and the mentor, for being updated on current trends that he needs to incorporate in his mentoring. A mentor, being looked up to as a professional, needs to be a step ahead of his mentee in terms of what he needs to teach. Thus, he himself must enrich his knowledge with research. A teacher derives much fulfillment is witnessing the growth and development of his students in areas he helped them with. The motivation to learn is affected by the reinforcements to learning namely intrinsic motivation or the inner drive to learn which leads to personal fulfillment; extrinsic motivation, which consists of rewards such as high grades or a prize for performing well; social reinforcement, an example of which is praise and approval from significant persons in an individuals life; and achievement, or the attaining of the learning goal. Having an interplay of the four kinds of reinforcement is the most effective way to motivate a learner to pursue more knowledge and acquire more skills (Stoll, L., Fink, D. & Earl, L., 2003). A teacher must be able to use such tools in sustaining his students’ passion for learning. Hay (1995) differentiates learning that comes in three levels in a mentoring relationship. The first level is traditional learning, which is the usual coaching and teaching about how to do things properly. An example is a teacher