Process for ScotELAs Recognition
In order to receive ScotELAs recognition, you need to submit a mentoring agreement form and 2 reflective pieces (for details, see handbook) which can be produced (and submitted) at any stage of the mentorship, depending on when reflection is most useful to support your learning. The format can also be chosen to suit your personal preference, as long as ScotELAs can store the documentation in the form of an electronic file (text, audio, video are all fine; 3D objects are not). The guidance below applies to both the role-focused and expertise-focused mentoring pathways.
The following questions can be adapted to your own situation.
Questions for mentees
Describe a step you aim to take for your career development and explain how mentoring has helped you formulate this goal.
Describe how you will use one aspect of your newly gained knowledge for your future work and explain how mentoring has helped you achieve this knowledge.
Identify a strength / weakness that the mentoring process has revealed and plan how you are going to harness / improve on this in the future.
Identify a decision you will need to take and analyse how the mentoring process can help you take it.
Questions for mentors
Identify a new insight into your role that has arisen from the mentoring process and explain what consequences this might have for your future work.
Identify a new question that has arisen from the mentoring process, explain why it is relevant for your work and how you will explore it further in the future.
Identify a strength / weakness that the mentoring process has revealed and plan how you are going to harness / improve on this in the future.
Choose a moment in the mentoring process that required your leadership skills. What have you learned about them and how could you use this in the future?
If you would like to suggest another question, please get in touch with us.
Ideas to get you started
If you are uncertain about choosing topics to reflect on, here are some questions to get you started:
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Consider where you were at the start. How have you developed since then?
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What were your weaknesses then and why do you think they existed?
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What specific skills have you developed?
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What specific knowledge have you developed?
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How have you felt during the mentoring process and why?
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What have you learned so far about your own ways of working (e.g. situations you avoid, preferred ways of working)
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What is it about the mentoring process that has helped?
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What gaps still exist and why?
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What more can be done to address these?
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How would you evaluate your engagement with the mentoring? What could you have done better?