Mentoring
PTK Faculty Mentoring Coordinator
The Mentoring Coordinator for PTK faculty is Senior Lecturer Dennis Winston. He can be contacted at englptkmentoring@umd.edu.
Mentoring for New Hires
New AWP Instructor Mentoring Guide for PTK Faculty
Throughout your first semester teaching ENGL101 at Maryland, you will be supported in two main ways by the Academic Writing Program: (1) through bi-weekly meetings for new instructors (New Instructor Meetings or NIMs), and (2) through your collaboration with your individual mentor. Your individual mentor will review your responses to one assignment and the grades you assign, observe one of your classes, and meet with you to discuss the feedback you received from your students through their mid-semester evaluations. A PTK AWP administrative fellow will run the NIMs for PTK this academic year, and members of the AWP administrative team (including the director) will serve as individual PTK mentors.
Bi-Weekly New Instructor Meetings (NIMs)
The bi-weekly NIMs introduce you to the components of the curriculum, especially the assignments and the core rhetorical concepts, and the goal of these meetings is to help to keep you a few steps ahead of your students in learning the material. They also provide a time for answering your questions and helping you to problem-solve situations that arise in the classroom. Attendance at your assigned meeting is mandatory. Your NIM facilitator will reach out before the semester starts to find a time for these meetings that works for you. Depending on scheduling constraints, these meetings may be one-on-one or facilitated in small groups. Please note that your NIM facilitator may differ from your individual mentor.
Your Work with Your Individual Mentor
Here’s how your collaboration with your individual mentor will unfold:
- Before the semester starts: Your mentor will reach out by email to introduce themselves and set-up a time to meet to discuss the mentoring process at the start of the semester.
- By the end of Week 2 of the semester: Email your final syllabus & policies to your mentor and Scott Eklund; let us know how your first week is going; set a date for your first observation.
- When your students turn in Assignment #1: Summary: You will comment on and grade five student summaries as soon as possible in whatever modality works best for you and turn in these five papers to your mentor. Your mentor will review and get them back to you with feedback on your student-facing responses and how your grading reflects the AWP grading norms. Then, with your mentor’s comments in mind, you may revise your original comments/grades, finish grading the rest, and return the summaries to your students. This process is called grade norming and it is important, as it ensures that your grading aligns with the grading criteria for the program. The process takes about two weeks, so don't yet make promises to your students about when they'll get their assignments back. Your mentor will have the first five summaries back to you in time for you to give your students feedback in advance of their next assignment.
- Two days before your first observation: Send a complete lesson plan to your mentor that you will be using on the day of your first observation and ensure that all necessary modules, pages, assignments, and files are uploaded and published. Here’s a moment too when you might discuss with your mentor how the class is going and identify any concerns that are emerging in class.
- By the end of Week 7: Have your mentor observe a class day of your choice. After the observation, set a time for a meeting to reflect on the individual class and the course writ large. You also might set the date for your second observation if you and your mentor decide that would be helpful. Your mentor will also send you feedback based on this observation
- As you distribute your mid-semester evaluations: make an appointment with your mentor to discuss the feedback you’ve received from the evaluations and how you will respond to this feedback.
- By the end of the semester: Your mentor will submit an observation report for your teaching file. You are encouraged to discuss this feedback with your mentor.
Observation Days
Think of the observation as a chance to plan a class really thoroughly, to develop a lesson plan you have been musing about, or to show off a part of the class you are most excited about, such as a reading, exercise, short assignment, or rhetorical concept that is of greatest interest to you. Also think about the observation as a chance to demonstrate your teaching skills, so choose a day that offers a balance of class activities (e.g. not a day focused only on peer review or where students are providing feedback for each others’ presentations). Finally, think of the observation as a chance to reflect openly on your teaching strengths and receive feedback and ideas to help with your weaknesses. The observation days are a chance to think about what you can do differently.
You are also welcome to email Scott Eklund, AWP Administrative Coordinator or Jess Enoch, AWP Director at any time with questions, successes, and reflections, but these formal check-in points will provide some support for you in your first term as a UMD teacher.
Mentoring for Professional Development
All PTK faculty can benefit from professional development. Working with a mentor can assist lecturers of any rank who want to make changes to their pedagogy, from reconfiguring assignments to improving classroom climate to incorporating new technologies into their classes. The Mentoring Program encourages people to offer and seek mentoring depending on their pedagogical expertise, interests, and needs.
Mentoring for Promotion
Lecturers and Senior Lecturers who are preparing for promotion may request a mentor to help them develop materials necessary to apply for promotion. A mentor can help compile the applicant’s dossier, providing feedback on documents, conducting a class observation for inclusion in the portfolio, and guiding the instructor through the promotion process. If you are going up for promotion and would like to be assigned a mentor, please email the mentoring coordinator at englptkmentoring@umd.edu.
Mentoring Handbook
To learn more about PTK faculty mentoring, refer to the current version of the Mentoring Handbook.