Renée Comesotti, M.ED. MEDL, Graduate Program Mentor Coordinator and grad students in the Great Hall during the Mentor Mashup practicum debrief lunch. (The IslandWood kitchen provides lunch for each week’s debrief lunch!)

The year-long 1:1 relationship of a mentor paired with a grad student offers sustained support for grads’ learning — helping them to envision, plan and observe their learning over time.

BUT! There’s a wide range of experience, perspectives and expertise within our community of mentors. And so, once or twice a year, we do a Mentor Mashup! The Mashup is a chance for grads to work with a mentor who is not their usual mentor to experience new insights, style, and energy.

During the Mashup each grad is paired with a mentor whose particular background and expertise will offer new perspective on the grad’s teaching journey. The mentor and grad work together during the grad’s two-week cycle of teaching, debrief and reflection on practice, interpreting the experience and sharing insights with one another.

In this way the Mentor Mashup helps to build our shared knowledge and broaden the circle of support for our grads.

A few current grads shared what the experience was like from their view:

“I loved mentor mashup. Ray [Director of School Overnight Program] was my mashup mentor and watched a new form of a lesson that I had crafted with Renée, my mentor for the year. It was really fun to get a fresh perspective on it as Ray was able to see different things through his unique perspective. In the lesson, I thought the worst part was the debrief and that the students weren’t interested. But, Ray pointed out that the students were interested, it just looked slightly different. They were deeply involved in the presentation and sharing with a partner, but on the verbal debrief I was seeing some tired kiddos. The fresh perspective helped me, especially with classes being busy — it’s easy to get in your head. I’m really lucky to be in a community that is able to consistently work with me on my practice and help me grow as an educator.”

“I love the rapport that I’ve developed with my usual 1:1 mentor, but the chance to get a different perspective on my teaching from another experienced IslandWood staff member sounded great. Last week I got to share some of my progress and processes with Dr. Priya [Senior Faculty for Practicum], who offered new insight on what I was thinking about teaching science, asking questions, and conducting investigations and debriefs with my students. It was also a chance for me to relate to Dr. Priya in a way other than having her as my professor.” – Amos P.

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You can learn more about IslandWood’s Graduate Program, in partnership with the University of Washington College of Education, here.

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