An introduction to the practice of collaborative learning and mentoring as it relates to the interdisciplinary issues raised in Scribner Seminars. The course examines the role of mentors, the ethics of mentoring, and common mentoring problems. Students engage in a consideration of the readings and topics in selected Scribner Seminars, placing them in wider intellectual and pedagogical contexts, and undertake a term project on mentoring. Required for all students serving as Scribner Seminar mentors.

Peer Mentors, assigned to some of the Scribner Seminars, provide assistance to students facing the challenges and stimulation of the Seminars and the transition to college. You mentors serve as models for the first-year students as they engage in creative, intellectual inquiry, bridging the space between the classroom and the residence hall by serving as academic and social role models for the first year student, and supporting new students’ transition to college by encouraging their integration into the larger community of scholars through the promotion of academic and cocurricular opportunities.

This course prepare you to provide effective mentoring to students in the Scribner Seminars. As with the Seminars, this is a course about knowing – particularly about ways to identify problems, formulate productive questions, and go about answering those questions – but this time in the context of mentoring. Students in this course will demonstrate the ability to:

• distinguish among, and formulate, types of questions asked by the discipline of mentoring
• read critically, and gather and interpret case studies related to peer mentoring
• consider and address complexities and ambiguities; make connections among ideas; recognize choices; examine assumptions and ask questions of yourselves and of your own work, as well as the work of first-year students
• formulate conclusions based upon evidence
• communicate ideas both orally and in writing
• steer first-year students effectively towards the use of institutional resources central to their academic needs
• relate the results of the course to your educational goals