It is really important for both the mentor and the apprentice to reflect on mentoring meetings and the actions taken as a result of those meetings afterwards. This allows both of them to think about and understand what went well and what didn’t go so well. This can be used to make sure that both the mentor and the apprentice are learning from the mentoring experience.
How can you help the apprentice to reflect on their learning?
When the apprentice reflects on what he or she has done, it helps them to understand the link between their actions and the practical results those actions have achieved. This is true both in their professional life and in their personal life. It also gives them a wider understanding of the things that might be important to their professional success.
When they become ‘reflectors’, apprentices are then able to apply their new knowledge and skills to their future activities. As a mentor, you must help this process along by using reflective questions, for example, ‘How did you feel/think at the time’ or ‘Why do you think that happened?’ or ‘What made you approach the situation in that particular way?’
Why is it important for an apprentice to use reflective practice?
It helps them:
- To accept responsibility for their own personal and career growth
- To see a clear link between the effort they put in and the outcome
- To get value from each mentoring experience
- To ‘learn how to learn’ and add new skills over time.
Why is it important for the mentor to use reflective practice?
As a mentor, you need to be keenly aware of how learning happens for you. As you explore your role as mentor, you will need to observe change as it takes place for you. This cements how mentoring works and what it is. A good way to do this is to record thoughts and ideas after mentoring sessions and use them as part of your development as a manager or supervisor.
Reflective practice:
- Develops your analytical skills and creative thinking
- Highlights areas where you need more knowledge
- Leads to greater understanding and ability
- Increases the chance of the apprentice receiving effective mentoring from you
- Helps your self-awareness and your personal and professional development.
When you reflect, think about:
- Decisions you make intuitively, on the spur of the moment
- What goes well and what goes badly
- What takes you by surprise
- What you find you can do easily and what proves to be more difficult
- How your apprentice behaves, what he or she does, what he or she finds difficult or easy
- What you observe and learn about yourself
- Sudden insights, when you notice that your perception of something has changed.
Whenever these things happen, write it all down on your reflective practice sheet contained in your Continuous Professional Development Plan (CPD Plan). Try to do this as soon as possible after the event.