Active Peers AI recently hosted its fourth YouTube Live on “How to bring mentors and mentees together to deliver an amazing outcome?”. This Livestream is based on the STEM TY Challenge, which set out to change perceptions, through a programme that provided mentoring and skills training for the students who participated.

During the mentor training and skills bridge day, Susan used Active Peers AI technology lots of times. For instance, Susan used the Active Peers AI Custom Prompter to facilitate engaging conversations between the mentors and the students. Susan also used the Feedback tool to help the participants evaluate Active Peers AI's technology and help them lock in their learnings.

Apart from a Q&A session with Susan, we also had two mentors, Emily Upton and Katie O'Brien, and Marguerite O Sullivan, the Chairperson of STEM South West, join us for an interview with Susan.

Susan's Interview with Katie

• As a mentor, Katie thought it was unique to have a second mentor working alongside her to provide mentoring to the students participating in the STEM TY Challenge. Katie found the support of the second mentor helpful as she always had someone to go through her ideas with and to also learn from each other. Part of Active Peers AI's ethos is that everyone should be able to learn from each other, including the mentors, and hence every mentor was partnered up with another mentor to learn from each other and provide support.
• Regarding the effectiveness of the Custom Prompter, Katie found that even the most basic questions the students asked, such as "what do you do in your job every day", are effective because it forces her to think about what she really does at work. Katie also conveyed that the students she was mentoring had a lot of questions regarding making mistakes at work and through their mentoring session, Katie hopes that she taught the teenagers that "it is okay to make a mistake" and "don't let the fear of making mistakes stop you from pursuing something that you're really interested in".
• During every Skills Bridge day, all the students were asked to write a Linkedln post to document their learnings. When Susan asked Katie how she documents her learnings, Katie reckons that she usually reflects on how much she is progressing in her work daily, and when she feels stuck, she would bring those issues up in the mentoring session with her mentor and ask the mentor for advice. Katie also reveals that she is a big fan of Linkedln it is her own public diary and she believes that the archived posts really show you how much you have progressed over the years. Katie sees her previous Linkedln posts as a source of encouragement when she feels like she is not achieving anything at the moment.

Susan's Interview with Emily

• The mentors frequently received feedback from Active Peers AI regarding what the STEM TY Challenge students thought of the mentoring session. Emily found the feedback timely as it was sent right after the mentoring session with the students. This allowed her to relay back the mentoring sessions and reflect on them while it was still fresh in her mind. Emily also found the feedback loop to be very helpful as it allowed her to see what other groups were doing and she found that she could apply some of the feedback given to their groups to her own group as well.
• Emily also points out that although she and her mentor partner both did their undergraduate in chemistry, they were working in very different jobs and this is a great way to show the students that your degree does not always confine you to one career option. Susan agrees with Emily on this as a lot of the students who participated in the STEM TY Challenge were worried about what if they do not end up liking what they are doing and feel stuck in their careers.
• Emily highly recommends everyone working in the STEM industry to apply to be a mentor for the next STEM TY Challenge as she found the experience to be very enjoyable, especially because of her students. Emily really appreciated the enthusiasm of the four students that she was mentoring as they were very excited to learn more about what she did, how she was doing it, and how she got there.

Susan's interview with Marguerite

• Marguerite sheds light on the process of coming up with the TY Challenge. Marguerite reveals that she really wanted to create an experience in which students can learn about what actually happens inside the gates of the STEM industry and clear some misconceptions that students might have regarding STEM and careers in STEM, whilst allowing the students to engage in peer learning and mentoring. With the help of Active Peers AI, Marguerite muses that they were able to come up with a learning experience where the experience is embedded in building skills, especially relating to teamwork, communication, and technology.
• Marguerite also talks about how the output of the challenge was more powerful than she could have ever imagined. During the STEM TY Challenge Showcase Day, they invited the parents and teachers of the students taking part in the competition and Marguerite said they were all very amazed by the student's outputs. Those videos are available for Marguerite and her team to share with a broader audience so that others can learn from them.
• Furthermore, Marguerite said they received an overwhelmingly positive feedback from the mentors regarding how much they learned from their mentoring experiences. Marguerite points out that the STEM TY Challenge really wanted the mentors to transfer their knowledge rather than helping the students learn.

Q&A Session with Susan

During the Q&A session with Susan, the audience posed the following questions:

1) "What has been your experience of being a mentor and a mentee and how do they differ from each other?"

As a mentee, Susan believes that it is important for you to be clear on what you want to get out of the mentoring experience and to have a clear idea of the outcome. Susan also points out that when you fall behind on your tasks and are not able to follow through with them, you should discuss them with your mentor rather than putting them off. Moreover, Susan believes that it is important to set an expiry date for the mentoring experience so that you can plan out the roadmap of what you want to achieve out of those limited sessions that you have with your mentor. It also gives you a deadline to get your output ready by then.

As a mentor, Susan reckons that it is important for you to know what the mentees specifically need help with. Similar to Marguerite, Susan also points out that the mentors should help the mentee along, rather than just passing down their wisdom as there is a big difference between learning and information transfer. Furthermore, when the mentee is not able to complete their tasks, the mentors should try to understand what is not done and why and help the mentee along.

2) "What are the key principles of a successful mentoring relationship in your opinion?"

Firstly, Susan points out that the parameters of the mentoring relationship should be clear, e.g. where both the mentor and mentee stand in terms of punctuality, confidentiality, honesty, personal matters, etc. Secondly, Susan believes that it is useful to know what you want from each meeting before you go in. So, it is helpful to prepare for the meeting in advance and set an agenda for the session. Lastly, the mentee should document their learnings and let the mentor know what they are learning along the way. This then allows the mentor to gauge how much the mentee is learning from the mentoring process and give appropriate feedback.

3) "Do you have any tips for implementing a mentoring scheme at a workplace?"

Susan personally believes that a mentoring scheme should be opt-in for both parties as a mentoring relationship does not automatically lead to success. Moreover, Susan recommends anyone who wants to implement a mentoring scheme at work to consider the relationship between the mentor and mentee. If the mentor is in a significantly higher position, one that can have an indirect influence on the mentee's future career pathway, the mentee might not feel comfortable sharing their troubles at work with the mentor. Furthermore, it is important to understand where blockage can happen in the system when setting up meetings between the mentors and mentees. Lastly, there needs to be a finite period of time that the mentoring scheme is designed for or an outcome to be achieved, e.g. a promotion for the mentee.  The body content of your post goes here. To edit this text, click on it and delete this default text and start typing your own or paste your own from a different source.