Course Analysis: Dream Scholarship Mentor Training

Instructional Designer: Jennifer Six-Reul

Course description
This course provides orientation and training for mentors in the Dream Scholarship Program (see below)
through the Norwalk Community College Foundation (NCCF). It is required for all mentors in the program.
Mentors will complete the course prior to the first meeting with their mentees. They will have already received
the mentees scholarship application, essay and recommendation letters. There will be under 10 learners in
the class.
During the course, mentors will learn about the program parameters, the benefits of mentoring, general
challenges to the mentee population, and how to be an effective mentor. The course been adapted from a
training/orientation program created by Dr. Susan Weinberger, aka Dr. Mentor. The class will be taught jointly
by Valerie Muller, program coordinator at NCCF, and Dr. Weinberger.
Learner Demographics

30-70 years old

Professionals and community volunteers also balancing work and family

All are college graduates, some with advanced degrees

Delivery
This course will be provided in a blended design:
The first 5 modules will be online and offered asynchronously, to be completed within a 3-week
window.
The final module will be a face-to-face group meeting at NCC with the program coordinator and
facilitator.
Challenges
Mentors are volunteers, each balancing some combination of work, family, and community
involvement. Therefore, the course is designed with efficiency as a priority. Each online module should
take no more than 30 minutes to complete.
All mentors have Internet access, however there may be varying degrees of online skills.
Therefore, ease-of-use is of primary consideration. The technical/procedural learning curve for the
online modules will be minimized by using activities/assessments that are easily accessed and
repeated across modules. (The final, classroom module will allow for more varied, higher level, and
interactive activities.)
About the Dream Scholarship Program
Scholarship recipients (mentees) are full-time college students meeting four specific criteria:
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)

Recent, high-performing NCC graduate

Documented financial need
Childhood immigrant
Undocumented (not yet U.S. citizens or permanent residents)
Transferring to an accredited, 4-year institution to complete an undergraduate degree

In many cases, the mentees are also first-generation college students. Mentees are matched with a mentor
who is a business and/or community leader and is required to work with the mentor over the (2-year)
scholarship period.
Course design copyright Jennifer Six-Reul, 2015. All rights reserved.
Course materials, where noted, copyright Dr. Susan Manning. All rights reserved.