Responsibilities of a Mentor

[FourPenguins]

The issue of mentor involvement in robot design and construction has been beat to death, so that's not what I'm asking here.

Instead, I want to know what CDers think about the duties of a mentor. What are their responsibilities when it comes to running the team? Chaperoning the team? Teaching the students? Who should spearhead fund raising efforts? Corporate relations? Public relations?

A recent event (that I think better left undisclosed) has made me wonder what everyone thinks of a mentor's responsibility. Where does the balance lie between a mentor's duty and a student's? Where does the responsibility (edited from "blame") fall when things are left undone?

[Rick TYler]

Originally Posted by FourPenguins

The issue of mentor involvement in robot design and construction has been beat to death, so that's not what I'm asking here.

Instead, I want to know what CDers think about the duties of a mentor. What are their responsibilities when it comes to running the team? Chaperoning the team? Teaching the students? Who should spearhead fund raising efforts? Corporate relations? Public relations?

A recent event (that I think better left undisclosed) has made me wonder what everyone thinks of a mentor's responsibility. Where does the balance lie between a mentor's duty and a student's? Where does the blame fall when things are left undone?

The job of the Coach/Lead mentor is the same as any other CEO -- make sure all the important things get done. The lead mentor is the plate-spinner-in-chief, the person who makes sure that someone is getting the job done. It takes time to build a team of adult volunteers and to integrate students into a program. The lead mentor identifies the absolute minimum things that HAVE TO get done, and makes sure they do get done, and encourages others to pursue their passions in doing the necessary and the nice-to-have. If no one wants to do the nice-to-have responsibilities, they simply don't have to get done. On any youth robotics team, the things that MUST get done include building a working robot, getting the paperwork done, raising the money, finding a place to meet, directing the scheduling process, and making sure there is enough mature guidance to help the students do their best. EVERYTHING else is optional, and depends on the quantity and quality of mentors and students.

I could go on about this for a few dozen pages. Was there something that you were specifically interested in?

[Arefin Bari]

Originally Posted by FourPenguins

What are their responsibilities when it comes to running the team?

The mentor should make sure that he can communicate with all the members on the team. He/she also needs to know the proper way to delegate different duties to members.

Chaperoning the team?

The mentor is responsible for the safety of all the members traveling to the event. There have been times when me and another mentor stayed up with the kids. Let the kids have fun whether it is to stay up till 3 in the morning and play guiter hero or just stay up to hang out. When you can compromise with the kids, they are in much better mood at the event.

Teaching the students?

By the time build season rolls around, it is very hard to teach 50+ students the basics of mechanical, electrical and software. I believe that mentors should take the time to teach the kids before build season starts. Of course the mentor may have a full time job, college, family to take care of. That's when the students come in where they help each other to learn different aspects. For example, for upcoming season, me and two other mentors have decided to design few things and then get together with the kids, teach them how to use cad, produce some off season products, have them work it and test it out; so by the time build season rolls around, we should be able to just stand over their shoulder and watch them do all the work. Of course we step in when they need help. Isn't that the whole point of FIRST... to inspire students?

Who should spearhead fund raising efforts?

I believe that you need two members who is very well with communication and writing. There are many white papers on CD where there are very good examples and ways to fund raise. Teams should use these resources.

Corporate relations and public relations should be handles by the whole team. The only way any corporate is going to be by your side is when you are working together as a team. Same goes for public relations; the only way to attract public into FIRST is to go out there as a team and do something that catches their eye. It's the teams' job.

Where does the blame fall when things are left undone?

Why point any fingers. Yes I know, it happens a lot. But why not work together as a team to come up with a solution to fix it? Honestly, I don't know how to answer this one.

[GeorgeTheEng]

Originally Posted by FourPenguins

What are their responsibilities when it comes to running the team?

Having a team that when from a fully mentor run team to a fully student run team, I beleive there is a middle ground. I think it is fine to let the students make many decisions but just like my job their are managers that need to approve. In this case it should be the mentors. They intern are held responsible by the school, the parents, and the sponsors.

Originally Posted by FourPenguins

Chaperoning the team?

I think this depends on the mentors. Honestly, Chaperoning is a complex issue since it can end up having insurance and legal ramifications. Some sponsors are willing to provide mentors, but do not want them to be responsible. That being said, I think every mentor has a responsibility to make sure the students are generally safe.

Originally Posted by FourPenguins

Where does the blame fall when things are left undone?

No where! In almost every situation I have been in, the "blame" can easily be spread around and serves no purpose. Besides, if important things are left undone, then the entire teams fails. My philosophy has always been: "It's happened. Who cares who is to blame. How do we fix this so it doesn't happen again?"

[JohnBoucher]

The lead mentor is responsible for it all. The trick is to delegate as much as possible and have effective communications with everyone.

The corporate analogy is appropriate. Treat the team as a company, not as a kingdom. You "hire" the best person for a particular job. All the employees are responsible for the success of the company. "Blame" is not GP, "Shared Responsibility" is what we teach.

[Bill Moore]

Originally Posted by GeorgeTheEng

No where! In almost every situation I have been in, the "blame" can easily be spread around and serves no purpose. Besides, if important things are left undone, then the entire teams fails. My philosophy has always been: "It's happened. Who cares who is to blame. How do we fix this so it doesn't happen again?"

George is correct; problems, mistakes, omissions rarely benefit by identifying an individual rather than identifying the process that allowed it to happen. Rather than assign blame, it should be used as a learning experience to eliminate it for the future.

[Mark McLeod]

Mentor/student responsibility splits are team specific and even within a team may vary year-to-year as experienced mentors/students move on and the inexperienced fill their shoes.
If you just want specifics for our team here are our lead mentor duties Advisor Handbook or for the run-of-the-mill mentor: Mentor Handbook, our corresponding student officer duties Officer Handbook or generic student responsibilities: Student Handbook. Fundraising, travel, etc. have been taken over by our parent Booster Club: Parent Handbook, but responsibilities beyond requiring accounts and contracts to be through legal adults are shared with students.
Generally, duties are split based on interest with the thankless jobs ending up most often in the hands of whoever blinks first. Core duties are the ultimate responsibility of the lead mentor with delegation to students, mentors, and parents.

Other than that I'm going to take a different tack here just in case...
-------------------
Has your teacher declined to assume some responsibilites that you all automatically expected them to assume?

We all must form a true appreciation for what teacher's volunteer for (and sacrifice) as opposed to what they are required to do by appointment by a school board of education, or through the goodwill of their hearts. People will do more for you if you don't take them for granted.

From a purely official standpoint only the advisors/mentors appointed to run the team by the school or chartering organization have specific official responsibilities. Those responsibilities address the administration's concerns and are typically legal of course. Lawsuits and the Board of Education calls only the Lead advisor/mentor to task, not the students. Official responsibilities usually include: hold meetings covering a specified number of hours, insure student safety, and process paperwork.

--------------------
Everything else is at the courtesy of the teacher, so you should be especially nice to them since they are usually volunteering their personal time and money from there on out. They usually accept and take on additional responsibilities, but those additional duties are on a purely volunteer basis. Usually safety training is assumed, however, with a club a teacher's official responsibilities may only include a requirement to be present at meetings and the basic safety/welfare of the club students.

Chaperoning the team, teaching the students, spearheading fund raising efforts, corporate relations, public relations are strictly speaking all additional volunteer efforts that can be spread over many other helping hands. Typically, teachers do take on much of these duties through a personal sense of responsibility and a wish to see the team succeed, however, teams must understand and be properly appreciative that it is indeed a personal volunteer effort and is not required. Some teachers just may not be able to do all these things due to overloaded commitments, while another teacher may go way above and beyond their responsibilities by advancing or outright giving the team money to make critical purchases.

Chaperoning trips is often handled as a separate issue by the school administration, because teachers have to get substitutes to cover for them in classes that are missed. If a critical AP test is coming up, then someone else may have to be found to chaparone. There is also usually a chaperone/student ratio, e.g., 10/1, that requires the recruitment of additional teachers, so teacher contracts or districts have set fees they pay to recruit the necessary chaperones. Supervision and chaperoning of the predominately underage students is a legal responsibility, and is a firing offense if not done with due diligence.

I know some administrations struggle to get teacher's, who have to volunteer to begin with, to dedicate the enormous amount of time that a FIRST team requires. A teacher may only reluctantly sign up to do the minimum necessary, and they may only end up a temporary place-holder while the team looks for a fresh, young, idealistic replacement. It's much easier to lead the school fly fishing club, and the time and expense commitment is much more reasonable for a person who probably has their own life.

[PHSmom]

this is our "core values" statement , and coaches goals....
(taken in part from FLL)
As it has been stated in other posts here- it is dependant upon how your team was established?? what are the long term goals for the team... We have attempted to establish a team that will be here for the long haul (win or loose). It is a Student run team (if they drop the ball we are there to assist, pick it up and get them on track again.)

sometimes it works better than others....at the forfront is that fact we have the responsiblity to forster a morally and ethicaly sound program.


Core Values

We are a TEAM.

We do the work to find solutions with guidance from our coaches and mentors.

We honor the spirit of friendly competition.

What we discover is more important than what we win.

We share our experiences with others.

We display gracious professionalism in everything we do.

We have fun.




My Promise as a Mentor/Coach/Volunteer:

The students come first. FOR15/TPP is about the students having fun and getting excited about science and technology. Everything my team does starts and ends with that principle.

The students do the work. This is their opportunity to learn and grow. The students on my team do all of the programming, research, problem solving, and building. Adults can help them find the answers, but cannot give them answers or make decisions.

FOR15/TPP communicates with the team via my primary email address, I am responsible for reading and following all aspects of FOR15/TPP guidelines and rules.

I will encourage my team members, other coaches, volunteers, parents and team supporters to develop and practice a set of FOR15 values that reflects FIRST’s goal to change culture in a positive way by inspiring others through our team’s actions and words.

[RoboMom]

There are teams that have a Mentor MOU (memorandum of understanding). Also ones for students and parents. (Mark has some great links for his team). I am trying to collect samples for NEMO.
This is all about communication and making sure all parties understand the expectations ahead of time.

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

Mentor/student responsibility splits are team specific and even within a team may vary year-to-year as experienced mentors/students move on and the inexperienced fill their shoes.
If you just want specifics for our team here are our lead mentor duties Advisor Handbook or for the run-of-the-mill mentor: Mentor Handbook, our corresponding student officer duties Officer Handbook or generic student responsibilities: Student Handbook. Fundraising, travel, etc. have been taken over by our parent Booster Club: Parent Handbook, but responsibilities beyond requiring accounts and contracts to be through legal adults are shared with students.
Generally, duties are split based on interest with the thankless jobs ending up most often in the hands of whoever blinks first. Core duties are the ultimate responsibility of the lead mentor with delegation to students, mentors, and parents.

Other than that I'm going to take a different tack here just in case...
-------------------
Has your teacher declined to assume some responsibilites that you all automatically expected them to assume?

We all must form a true appreciation for what teacher's volunteer for (and sacrifice) as opposed to what they are required to do by appointment by a school board of education, or through the goodwill of their hearts. People will do more for you if you don't take them for granted.

From a purely official standpoint only the advisors/mentors appointed to run the team by the school or chartering organization have specific official responsibilities. Those responsibilities address the administration's concerns and are typically legal of course. Lawsuits and the Board of Education calls only the Lead advisor/mentor to task, not the students. Official responsibilities usually include: hold meetings covering a specified number of hours, insure student safety, and process paperwork.

--------------------
Everything else is at the courtesy of the teacher, so you should be especially nice to them since they are usually volunteering their personal time and money from there on out. They usually accept and take on additional responsibilities, but those additional duties are on a purely volunteer basis. Usually safety training is assumed, however, with a club a teacher's official responsibilities may only include a requirement to be present at meetings and the basic safety/welfare of the club students.

Chaperoning the team, teaching the students, spearheading fund raising efforts, corporate relations, public relations are strictly speaking all additional volunteer efforts that can be spread over many other helping hands. Typically, teachers do take on much of these duties through a personal sense of responsibility and a wish to see the team succeed, however, teams must understand and be properly appreciative that it is indeed a personal volunteer effort and is not required. Some teachers just may not be able to do all these things due to overloaded commitments, while another teacher may go way above and beyond their responsibilities by advancing or outright giving the team money to make critical purchases.

Chaperoning trips is often handled as a separate issue by the school administration, because teachers have to get substitutes to cover for them in classes that are missed. If a critical AP test is coming up, then someone else may have to be found to chaparone. There is also usually a chaperone/student ratio, e.g., 10/1, that requires the recruitment of additional teachers, so teacher contracts or districts have set fees they pay to recruit the necessary chaperones. Supervision and chaperoning of the predominately underage students is a legal responsibility, and is a firing offense if not done with due diligence.

I know some administrations struggle to get teacher's, who have to volunteer to begin with, to dedicate the enormous amount of time that a FIRST team requires. A teacher may only reluctantly sign up to do the minimum necessary, and they may only end up a temporary place-holder while the team looks for a fresh, young, idealistic replacement. It's much easier to lead the school fly fishing club, and the time and expense commitment is much more reasonable for a person who probably has their own life.

Mark,
I am very impressed. That is some detailed hard work that went into clearly defining your team organization and responsibilities. Its no wonder you folks are very successful every year.
You've given us some beefed up homework assignments to work on over the summer.
See you in NJ again next year?

Glenn

[FourPenguins]

First, I'd like to thank everyone here for responding. I'd also like to reiterate that the actual event that prompted this is not important, it only got me wondering.

Personally, I feel that the adults on a team have a few responsibilities.

They are responsible for the knowledge they have. If they know something that can help a (considerably less knowledgeable) student make a better robot, then they have a responsibility to teach the student. That's just the definition of a mentor.

If a mentor is the the school's official contact/head mentor/etc, he/she is responsible for dealing with the school. If there is a problem concerning the team, that mentor is responsible for being the school's point of contact, advocating for his/her students, and taking responsibility of enforcement of school policies.

The buck stops at the adults. If something isn't getting done, the adults need to step in, find out why, and determine a solution without putting anyone down or excluding anyone. In the end, any failure of the team falls on everyone who didn't help, not the one person or group of people who tried and failed.

The adults are responsible for stepping back. Let the students learn, but guide them. Don't leave them hanging, but don't hand them a robot either. Let them be part of the process, but give them the guidance they need not only to succeed at building a robot, but to learn and gain from the experience.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by FourPenguins

Where does the responsibility (edited from "blame") fall when things are left undone?

This reminded me of one of Dave's gems regarding the topic, blame.

[Kelly]

After visiting our regional, one of our sponsors proposed banning mentors from the pits. He was annoyed by the number of teams he saw where a team of adults were crowded around a robot while the students stood back and watched. It would be a tad impractical to ban mentors from working at all during the build season, but student-only pits would ensure that the team knew enough about the inner workings of the robot to make any repairs. Also, working on the robot in the pits is one of the most exciting things about FIRST, and it's an opportunity I hope as many students as possible can have.

[wendymom]

That would be a huge safety issue. The mentors are there to watch over as much as teach. Parents and school boards would never let that happen anymore than they would send you off to the competition with no adult supervision at all.

I understand the reasoning...but he didnt think it it all the way through

[FourPenguins]

Originally Posted by Kelly

After visiting our regional, one of our sponsors proposed banning mentors from the pits. He was annoyed by the number of teams he saw where a team of adults were crowded around a robot while the students stood back and watched.

I would certainly support limiting the pits to one or two mentors per team. That would ensure a certain mentor/student ratio just because one-two people are rarely enough to do everything that needs to be done...
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