Welcome to OkMEA Music Mentoring! We are excited that you have chosen to be a part of such an impactful program that promotes retention and longevity in early-career music teachers. Your time and dedication is much appreciated (especially by your mentee!).

Visiting your mentee in their natural environment can be very impactful when offering instructional support, allowing you to witness “first-hand” the interactions between novice teacher and his/her students.  In the event that you visit your mentee during the school day, and are expected to cover the cost (out-of-pocket) for a substitute teacher in your absence, OkMEA is offering financial assistance. The organization will reimburse mentor teachers (up to $100.00 per visit) for incurred substitute fees. You may request funds no more than two times per academic year. Upon returning from your in-school visit to your mentee’s classroom, do the following:

1. Print and complete the first two sections of the Substitute Teacher Fee Reimbursement Form.
2. Have your building administrator complete the third section and sign the form, confirming your incurred, out-of-pocket substitute teacher fee.
3. Scan and upload this form to the Formstack

Keys to Success

Expectations. You and your mentee should delineate these from the onset of your pairing. How often will you plan to meet? What types of support does your mentee need? When will you make yourself available? Who is responsible for initiating communication? Without these guidelines, the relationship might seem unstructured and unimportant. Not adhering to the expectations that you establish could make either party disrespect—or worse, resent—the other. Everyone’s time and efforts are important. Make it a point to establish expectations for each other and stick to it!

To assist in the planning, we’ve devised a simple worksheet/checklist to use as a guide in your initial meeting with your mentee.

Mentor/Mentee Communication

Of course, meeting with your mentee during the school day on a regular basis is impractical. While we encourage you to visit the beginning teacher in their own classroom a couple of times, we recognize that entails missing your own classes, finding a substitute teacher, etc. So, what to do? There are a few different settings/approaches to consider.

Dialogic Questioning

Many experienced teachers (naturally) want to share their solutions to issues that arise in the profession: classroom management, communicating with parents, and other problem-solving scenarios. While these tried and tested solutions might be applicable to a mentee’s situation, simply giving the beginning teacher “the answer” does not afford them the opportunity to think on their own. Your job as a mentor is to guide the novice toward self-reflection and solving the issue on their own. To do so, we suggest using dialogic questioning—a form of questioning that promotes further dialogue and encourages the mentee to think, formulate, and respond in a meaningful manner. Sometimes, simply asking “Why” or “What” at the beginning of your question is a good way to prompt the mentee. Some sample questions might be:

• What could the cause of ________ be?
• Why do you think ______________ reacted that way?
• How might you better handle that in the future?
• What could you have done differently?
• Explain that to me a little.

Additionally, it is important to keep in mind that we all come from different backgrounds, with different strengths, and teach in different environments. Even though a possible solution “worked for you,” that doesn’t mean it will transfer to every teacher or situation. By all means—if you have an effective way of solving a problem, share it! But reiterate to your mentee that your way may be just one way to handle it, and that there very well might be other effective solutions. Such an approach will build a relationship in which the mentee feels comfortable suggesting remedies and isn’t afraid to “be wrong.”