Chapter Goal: This chapter is intended to inspire readers to become more aware of their own mentoring style and to define characteristics of a mentor that occur during a PjBL pipeline.
To develop a mentoring practice
You need to increase awareness of your own mentoring practices
I remember my first mentor. I walked down a strange basement hallway at York University just north of Toronto and saw a sign on the door that read something like “want to go beyond classical or jazz piano playing and learn how to play whatever you want?”. OK that’s how I remember it, but it was likely not so cheeky. My mentor was though. I knocked on the door and after I inquired a bit more about the course, I was invited to come to the first class before I made up my mind. By that time, I had had my first piano lesson with a classical master I can no longer remember and I was thoroughly disappointed. Not for me, at all. I was done with Mozart. So, at my first Piano Improvisation class, everyone went round the room telling the rest of the class what brought them here, and I remember saying something like “Well, everything is improvised right? So even me being here is. Even me finding out about this class by taking the wrong turn down this dismal hallway to this class.” Chasey Cobolt—as we ended up calling our mentor one time—without missing a cue responded quickly, “You memorized that didn’t you?”
Who was your first mentor?
In Chapter 1, you learned a little bit about the territory of PjBL in post-secondary including some of the ways students learn and the multiple types of roles you’ll have to play. All those roles are bridged by the mentor, acting as a kind of ringmaster who presents content, listens to how students react, and responds accordingly. Just like in the workplace, there’s not a lot of time to develop a systematic approach to how you mentor in post-secondary. This is partly because mentors draw spontaneously from their own experience when it comes to supporting a mentee in solving a problem that helps them develop a digital prototype with others. We all have our way of mentoring based on our professional experience managing, supervising, and guiding ourselves and others, all along different project pipelines with their own contextual demands. It’s important then to decipher your own approach to mentoring by thinking about previous occasions where it emerged from your interactions in professional settings.
Mentoring Is
A spoke diagram exhibits spontaneous, pre-planned, assessment, management, challenging, storytelling, presence, feedback, partnership, discernment, regulating, teaching, patience, tough love, friendship, humor, and guidance as aspects representing what mentoring is.
Different words to describe mentoring from the literature and professional experience
To Do: Mentoring Is
A spoke diagram exhibits eight unlabeled aspects defining what mentoring is.
A visual model to define what mentoring means to you
Much of the literature on mentoring talks about the action of mentoring as more of an approach to guiding others toward teaching themselves, pointing them to what they might need to learn, supporting their efforts at become self-reliant. You’re not exactly a coach on the side either although many of the characteristics of coaches and mentors might be similar. Coaches can be more empathetic, whereas mentors might be less. Both can also drive you hard to do what it takes to succeed. A relationship with a mentor can last well beyond the time you are teaching someone in a four-year undergraduate degree. Mentors seem to be more concerned though about the learning that needs to take place and are there to facilitate you in becoming more aware of how you learn. The mentoring strategies that come later in the book are based on research undertaken with mentors from the digital media industry. These mentors rely on a body of knowledge gained from real-life experiences in the workplace. That know-how is an essential part of who they are, and when shared with learners in an educational environment, it is an invaluable resource that can support students in enacting what they learn from direct experience that is as close as possible to the real thing.
Let the Mentor Be Summoned
At times mentoring can feel like juggling several simultaneous responses, personas, approaches, and responsibilities at the same time. It is difficult to predict what aspect of your mentor will come up when. What is somewhat predictable is anticipating the types of actions that a mentor will engage in because of responding to the environmental demands of a PjBL course. Mentors bridge the gap between acquiring knowledge and applying it. They guide individual and team learning. They identify the kinds of things students need to know in real-world settings and determine how to activate them throughout the PjBL pipeline. They manage learners to handle the prototyping process. They understand the types of personalities or personas that will work with the types of learners they encounter.
Mentors Bridge the Gap Between Acquiring Knowledge and Applying It
Understand that constructing prototypes iteratively is a strategy to move beyond a conceptual understanding of a problem
Associate the act of co-constructing prototypes as their combined efforts of attempting to solve a human problem
Experience those inherent imperfections, flaws, and obstacle that form part of the process of creation itself
Realize that another method of solving human problems is to prototype solutions in shorter time cycles instead of proposing a single solution over a longer period
Manage their time and resources if they are to develop agency in solving problems on their own
Learn to manage how much they can individually contribute over a specified period and become more efficient with how they use their time in the process
Communicate persistently to ensure that all individuals are directing their aligned activities toward the completion of tasks that contribute to the features of an ever-improving prototype
Become comfortable with the unexpected and adapt to changes to their intended vision and goals
Resolve that the final features of their developed prototype can seldom be predicted and accurately scoped
Affirm that unknown solutions that emerge through the act of co-creating prototypes will occur
Integrate client needs and their shifting opinions on a project direction since they are part of a design process that is inherently unknown
An illustration exhibits three circles, two of which contain one to two smaller circles, labeled V dot 1, V dot 2, and V dot 3, passing through a horizontally oriented tube, and ending up as three circles of different sizes within a larger circle.
Attempts to solve a problem through prototyping in PjBL allow the actual problem to emerge
To Do: Bridging Knowledge to Action
There are many other components of a production pipeline that team members need to know that will only be useful when applied to a project. Identify those components that you believe you will have to bridge through mentoring in its application on a project.
An illustration exhibits the arch bridge that connects the respective four unlabeled components of what you teach, and how they apply it.
Brainstorm what learners need to know and how they will apply it on a production pipeline
Mentors Guide Individual and Team Learning in PjBL
Defining the learning that occurs within a project-based course through comparison of say lecture-based learning is often explained by what it is not. It’s not exactly a course where students just build something even though they are constantly engaging with the co-construction process. It’s not a lecture-based or theoretical course where students learn about principles of how to work together in an Agile environment to make emerging technologies.
In PjBL environments, learners engage in the “doing of it.” It is not completely devoid of theory or criticality as might be misconstrued. Learners persistently engage in conducting research to understand what other projects might have been made that are similar. They also interrogate what they are making weekly to ensure that it solves a human problem. Learners providing feedback to one another can lead to the crucial learning outcome of creating self-regulatory teams. By interrogating their own design work, students understand that while their efforts may have resulted in a satisfactory result, there will always be room for improvement. Finally, they regularly test their prototypes and give each other feedback cyclically to improve the human experience of what they are creating.
One of the other challenges of PjBL being recognized in academic environments is partly because the focus of how people learn in project courses goes back and forth between the individual and the group. This presents a problem with many learning theories that primarily focus on understanding how individuals learn. Most theories of how scholars think we learn have informed how a course is designed. That has led to designs of learning that gravitate to what is easiest to manage, individual assessment. PjBL environments that demand collaborative activities challenge the dominance of individual assessment and attempt to balance this with assessing how individuals learn together. This is an important point to remember and will surface persistently in the remaining chapters. Mentoring supports individuals and teams simultaneously and will at times need to be focused on navigating learners to spend as much energy to improve their collaboration with each other.
Mentors Guide Prototyping in PjBL Courses
Learners in a project-based learning environment are tasked to build their knowledge and knowing through the rapid prototyping of a solution to a design problem in iterative cycles. The concept of rapid prototyping comes from software development and has become a design methodology, where a version of an idea is created through a specific medium, tested, and can lead to further versions that are more developed, may involve a different medium, and provide increased interactivity.
An illustration of a rightward arrow with 3 oval-shaped components labeled, from left to right, low fidelity prototyping sprints, higher fidelity prototyping sprints, and review, refine, and re-plan. The third component connects to the second component.
Iterative cycles of rapid prototyping
The design of a PjBL course, especially with projects focused on technologies that don’t yet exist, follows similar cycles and patterns of evolution. Like the iterative process in project-based development, a rapid prototyping learning design involves developing a prototype that is tested on learners (users) whose capacity to understand content (the prototype) provides immediate feedback to the instructor (tester) who then makes changes in-the-moment and in-between classes. This shows us that adjustments to the design of learning are informed by the students who meet that design of learning.
A reflective practice will benefit instructors in a PjBL course combined with a capacity to be persistently observant to what is required and what might need to shift based on learner responses to the content, and questions they might have that reveal potential gaps that need to be filled. While the learner and the designer/teacher/mentor may have different learning experiences, they share one thing in common—they are both engaged in the act of problem-solving. While the learner is focused on solving the design problem as it relates to developing a digital artifact for a project, the designer/teacher/mentor is focused on responding to the process that each learner is applying to identify and solve problems, capturing interactions that they have with the learners, analyzing the situation, documenting it, revising their next interaction to plan the next prototype (class).
Mentors Translate Knowledge and Know-How into Authentic Tasks and Activities
PjBL environments provide learners with authentic tasks and learning outcomes that can be transferable to communities of practice they wish to transition into. One requirement for teaching and mentoring in this environment is to identify the kinds of things a person needs to know in real-world settings and determine how to integrate those into the design of a PjBL course. You already identified what types of components of a production pipeline learners would benefit from knowing and how you might bridge this knowledge in a PjBL environment. Now let’s get more specific.
To Do: Begin to Plot Your Know-How and Knowledge
Using the visual model in Figure 2-6, differentiate between the things learners need to know and knowledge that would benefit them prior to entering your workplace environment.
An illustration exhibits the letters K N O W, on the left, branching into the word how with 5 unlabeled components and the word ledge with 5 unlabeled components.
Differentiate between what you know vs. what you know how to do
After an initial brainstorm, it will benefit you to dive in more deeply, reflecting on the knowledge and know-how you may take for granted. These may seem obvious given your expertise, so it is important to unpack your assumptions of what learners should know and then plot activities that will support them in gaining both knowledge and know-how. To do so, do the following steps.
Step 1: Identify What Recruits May Need to Have Knowledge of
Identifying the knowledge recruits need to have may come down to the role they are applying for, and the accompanying skills required. There may be some knowledge though that would benefit them coming into your organization that they may likely not have. Think of when you or someone newer to the company came in to work and would have benefited from say being able to read an Excel sheet and contribute to one remotely. That may implicate a particular advanced level of knowledge with Excel that may even involve formulas to speed up workflow. What does advanced knowledge of Photoshop mean, or Unity? It might be important to think of specific workflows that colleagues in your organization take part in to better understand the knowledge base that is required. What are the important things to know and what are nice-to-haves?
Step 2: Identifying Experience in Production or Know-How
Know-how is commonly developed through experience. What you’ll likely find is that many learners in a PjBL course have very little experience co-constructing a digital prototype, let alone any project. Assume that a student will come to the table with a strong desire to experience with little know-how, and therefore they will need to gain know-how through different defined workflows. Identifying some of those workflows may be a good way to start to think of how they fit within a PjBL pipeline. For example, what is the workflow required to create a physical prototype? What about a 3D asset? Go farther if animation is something you want learners to gain experience with. What is required to understand the workflow of animating a 3D character for a VR environment?
Step 3: Ask How They Might Come to Learn This Knowledge and Know-How
Mapping out the different ways that students will come to acquire knowledge and practice workflows that lead to know-how may seem a little daunting. What you will eventually undertake in subsequent chapters is to break down a typical workflow and then figure out how you are going to teach it, then have learners practice it. For example, what would be involved in teaching and mentoring learners how to work with separating an image from its background and then using that image as part of the user interface design for a medical application on a digital prototyping application like POP (prototyping on paper)?
Step 4: Use These to Create Activities That You’ll Include in the PjBL Course You Eventually Design
Keep in mind that many prototypes learners engage in creating won’t be constructed alone. They will each contribute to a collaborative process, and they will benefit from an assortment of activities you design that get them to practice making prototypes together. What do they need to learn to do so? This might also implicate collaborative values, drawing up Rules of Play and figuring out some way to manage their projects through Agile. They’ll need to learn all those processes and then practice applying them through developing prototypes and then reflecting on the process.
Mentors Understand Their Different Personalities and Respond to Those of Their Mentees
Who you are as mentor will propel you to use one or more different types of mentoring strategies and influence how you mentor. The Mentor Persona map is inspired by a type of psychographic profiling common to human-centered design processes. Often with mentoring, there is not one but multiple personality traits or characteristics that mentees bring out in mentors. Those characteristics are often activated as a response to the mentee’s persona, the situation, and the intervention that is called for. Figure 2-7 shows you a few that have manifested when facilitating PjBL environments in graduate and undergraduate environments.
A mentor persona map exhibits 16 aspects labeled, from top to bottom and left to right, wide old owl, big heart, the provocateur, joker, the parent, babysitter, tough love, dream breaker, empath, friend, client, elephant, tiger, coach, emperor penguin, and Pulcinella.
Different types of mentor personas that surface when mentoring learners
The Wise Old Owl is crisp, precise, and to the point in providing feedback. When asked for an answer to a question, often the Wise Old Owl does not provide a direct answer, but a question.
Big Heart is loving and affirming, always approaching learners with the intention of empowering them, feeling empathy for the challenges they face, and affirming their work.
The Provocateur teases and at times picks on a mentee but always with the best intention in mind to point them to habits they are engaged in that will slow down the co-creative process.
The Joker looks for opportunities to break the ice and take the seriousness out of things to laugh.
The Parent may sometimes manifest and does so when a team requires more structure and discipline to move forward on project development. They are not mean-spirited but direct with what needs to happen, and often specific assignments are given to the team that they need to account for.
The Babysitter is the type of mentor who feels they need to spend a lot of time with the team because the team may not be used to working on an Agile development pipeline. There is a balance of course as too much of the babysitter can lead a mentor to solve problems for a team that should really work toward self-agency.
Tough Love persona is summoned to set things right when mentees start to stray from their own defined Rules of Play. That persona may come to the table with targeted interventions that they think will help the team. Be aware of this personality trait as it might sometimes come across too strongly or be used inappropriately. This personality is balanced with affirming students at the same time.
Dream Breakers crush the blue-sky ideas when it comes to moving into production and they also help keep the team on scope. They don’t need to “kill babies” as the expression goes. A simple reality check and explaining to learners why their fantastic idea may be out of scope and lead to disappointment is all that is needed.
The Empath is that part of the mentor that affirms whatever emotional roller coasters might be happening with individuals or the team and then shifts their focus to demonstrating virtuosity and excellence. Be aware of your own boundaries in this case as you also need to ensure all students have the same opportunities and no one student is given too much latitude.
The Friend is that rare quality that develops an amicable relationship with the team but is always cautious of keeping a strict professional boundary. Being present for the team when needed and sympathetic to their levels of stress that might come out of developing out of the unknown is sometimes comforting.
The mentor as Client is tough, wants what they want, and you better impress them with your ideas and work ethic. At times teams need to respond to tough questions that the mentor surfaces, in essence acting as a surrogate of the client. Being clear that that’s the role you are playing is helpful for students who can be let in on the joke.
The Elephant is the mentor who removes obstacles acting in the best interests of the team and the success of the project. Their actions may not even be known to the team, as they respond to team obstacles as fast as they can to keep the momentum of the project going.
The Tiger is the protector of the team when external forces attempt to bring harm, doubt, or trouble to any team member. Again, this is a personality trait that needs to be balanced as students will also learn a lot from standing up for their work and creating their own professional boundaries.
The Coach hypes the team, gets them excited, and keeps them in the game, head high and ready to roll with the punches, a constant inspiration and relentless positive force. At times the coach may need to be summoned if a prototype gets torn apart by another team, or if any member of a team takes a critique about the project, personally.
Emperor Penguin can to some extent and at times to the detriment of the team overprotect the team’s feelings from being hurt, especially from outside critique. The intent is well meaning but needs to be monitored. Remind yourself of the learning outcomes and that student efforts may sometimes lead to productive failure is helpful in tempering the perfectionist.
Pulcinella is a commedia character who plays dumb even though they are not, by walking through team offers, prototypes, and ideas to their at times flawed and humorous conclusion. Students tend to respond well to this personality trait, particularly when you take on the role of the user who happens to not know anything about technology.
To Do: Mentor Personas
After reviewing the visual model, which ones resonate with you? What types of personas are missing that you may actively embody in certain situations or have experienced before in others?
A mentor persona map with 16 unlabeled aspects surrounding a brain inside a light bulb with a lengthy wire outlining a human face in the side view.
A visual model to brainstorm the personas that surface when you mentor others
Mentee Personas
It goes without saying that mentor personas are also provoked by mentee personality traits. The visual model in Figure 2-9 identifies many of the characteristics of mentee personas that you might encounter in learners, to varying degree.
A mentor persona map exhibits 16 aspects labeled, from top to bottom and left to right, yes AND, analyzer, interrogator, sloth, squirrel, panda, border collie, resistor, been there, reactor, sheep, mime, ringmaster, Psst, distractor, and three monkeys.
Mentee personas you encounter when mentoring learners
The Yes AND is a team player, always wanting to try things before saying no, or, but. This is a positive force for the team and is important to nurture and affirm as that kind of approach can spread to other learners.
The Analyzer likes to take things in and mull things over and in this process is usually silent but not absent. Analyzers are essential to a team makeup and often catch details that others miss. They can also empower other team members to increase their discernment.
The Interrogator is that part of a mentee who constantly questions the validity of every single idea that is presented, which is usually a good thing but at times can slow the team down. The intent of the interrogator is what can be affirmed. In addition, that part of the personality needs to also be tempered with positive affirmations of what they are commenting on or critiquing, as it will build more trust in other learners and encourage them to make offers rather than holding back on them.
The Sloth is a type of character who just moves slow on everything, often needing a lot of time to digest. They tend to take their time and slow teams down. That said, like the analyzer, they can also be highly detail oriented and that detail is important to the team. Individual goal-setting to rapidly prototype tends to balance this personality trait out.
Squirrels are caffeine-fueled critters whose attention span is short but they can flit back and forth quickly between conversations, ideas, and activities. This capacity makes them ideal to lead rapid prototyping initiatives but a balance of taking time out should also be encouraged as they can quickly lose focus on the team and project needs quickly.
Pandas are kind of clumsy and oafish and often respond to what the team needs, never really knowing what they are doing outside of their own work. That personality trait lives in each learner, and multiple daily status updates and other communication tools are helpful to support their capacity to be communicative.
Border Collie’s are astute listeners and make for good PM’s nipping at everyone’s heels to keep the team on track and are excellent at following the lead. Where they need support is in finding that fine balance between knowing when the team needs support managing time and knowing when they are micromanaging.
Resistors resist and do so well. Even when you think everyone’s on the same page, some type of response from the resistor will come out, at times in the form of a comment rather than a disagreement. Resistors can be placed in leadership positions at times to put them in a position of responsibility, but never at the expense of team mutiny.
The Been There mentees always seem to come from a place of knowing, as if they have lived countless lives and lived all the experiences of every single member of a production team as they already know. These types of personality traits need to be challenged to take on something outside their comfort zone and even better if it’s something that requires taking up a new skill.
Reactors seem calm on the outside but have the tendency to explode under pressure and often can be seen taking a time-out. They have likely not had a lot of experience working with others or perhaps they don’t really want to work with others. They may require time with you in a one-on-one situation to talk things through and possibly increase their tolerance for others.
Sheep are not always easy to locate. They don’t even need to say things like “I agree,” as they just follow and enjoy being told what to do as they haven’t really thought about it. When this personality trait overrides others, it is important to let them know that you see them, affirm their work, and challenge them to be more vocal in class.
Mimes while similar to Sheep are generally the quiet ones; however, in secret and off the stage of a meeting, they will unleash their masterful vocabulary and will likely talk code. Like sheep, encourage mimes to speak as being vocal about their work, thoughts, and opinions will prepare them for doing so in work environments, which they will inevitably have to do.
Ringmasters keep it all together and at times even question why they are there. They do need to be there because without a producer there is nothing to produce. They are good vision keepers and understand big picture. While they tend to shy away from leading, they might show potential and need some tips to do so.
Pssts are the distractors who don’t really know what’s going on, so they ask someone else and then distract them and all of this because they are afraid to ask what they don’t know most likely to not feel stupid. They may need more time to digest and will often understand if you say something in more than just one way.
Distractors are a bit different than Pssts in that they really like to shine in the room whether showing off a new pair of shoes or the latest meme. Distractors are key to building team culture. They are not the best for keeping focus but can really support a team externally. When they are present, they are highly responsive and listen well.
The Three Monkeys are the types of learners that don’t really want to get involved in any of the politic and internal struggles of team members. They prefer to avoid working to resolve what is not their problem and do the work they are paid to do. In learning environments, this is the type of personality that will not say a word about how the team dynamic is going unless asked. Anticipate having to ask as teams often conceal any negativity as they believe their grades will be affected by this.
To Do: Mentee Personas
Map your own mentee personality traits as it is helpful to plan different strategic approaches when you see similar traits showing up as you start mentoring learners. Bear in mind that some learners may demonstrate aspects of one or another based on the situation and in particular the person they are directly interacting with.
A mentor persona map with 16 unlabeled aspects surrounding a brightly colored light bulb with a lengthy wire outlining a human face in the side view.
Identify the types of mentee personas that you have encountered
Chapter Summary
Sharing what you know in college or university settings will inevitably lead you to mentor and cultivate a teaching practice. To start that journey, in the next chapter you will benefit from understanding how, what, and when to teach the knowledge you have gained on previous production pipelines. This includes the tools you’ve used to keep teams aligned and the project moving forward.
Suggested that you define what mentoring means to you as mentors bridge different types of roles you will enact when you facilitate a PjBL course.
Proposed that you identify what learners need to learn on a production pipeline and how you would bridge that knowledge to its application through mentoring.
Revealed different actionables to guide individuals and team, break down what can be learned through knowledge vs. practice, and translate these into activities learners can engage in.
Highlighted the importance of mentoring the iterative process of prototyping.
Proposed different types of mentor and learner personalities.
Tools and Suggested Processes
Identify qualities and characteristics of what mentoring is to you.
Brainstorm the knowledge and know-how that would benefit new recruits transitioning into your company.
Mentor and Mentee Persona Visual model.
Deeper Dive
Dart, P., Johnston, L., & Schmidt, C. (1996, July). Enhancing project-based learning: Variations on mentoring. In Proceedings of 1996 Australian Software Engineering Conference (pp. 112-117). IEEE.
Ehrich, L. C., Hansford, B., & Tennent, L. (2004). Formal mentoring programs in education and other professions: A review of the literature. Educational administration quarterly, 40(4), 518-540.
Cranwell-Ward, J., Bossons, P., & Gover, S. (2004). What is Mentoring?. In Mentoring (pp. 26-44). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Fagerholm, F., Guinea, A. S., Münch, J., & Borenstein, J. (2014, September). The role of mentoring and project characteristics for onboarding in open source software projects. In Proceedings of the 8th ACM/IEEE international symposium on empirical software engineering and measurement (pp. 1-10).
Pennefather, P. E. M. (2016). Mentoring strategies in a project-based learning environment: A focus on self-regulation (Doctoral dissertation, Education: Faculty of Education).
Zachary, L. J., & Fain, L. Z. (2022). The mentor's guide: Facilitating effective learning relationships. John Wiley & Sons.