Co-creating the mentor experience for Design Club — Part 3
Key user insights into how we might create the ideal mentoring experience for Design Club
Motivation
From our co-creation workshop, introduced in part 1, we found people to be intrinsically motivated, with lots of passion to be part of Design Club.
In general, there is a mutual benefit to join and be a mentor for Design Club: both get to have fun in the process, learn from each other, and have an opportunity to give back to the community with their skills and knowledge. Also, the Design Club mission resonated with people. They believe that creativity, empathy and collaboration are key skills for everyone, and they want to support that movement.
We identified three types of designers that want to get involved:
- Designer mothers identified the need for the next generation to hone their creativity and give kids something to aspire to.
- Lead designers who have been in the design industry want to have the opportunity to use their skills, share their knowledge and give back.
- Junior/mid designers that want to be able to use this opportunity to gain work experience and grow their skills further.
Key findings
We looked at the mentor journey across three stages. Before doing mentoring, during mentoring, and after mentoring.
Before
Set expectations on how mentors can get involved more explicitly and get them prepared.
We spent most of our time discussing the before and during stages of the mentoring experience. This is because mentors wanted to understand what’s involved and how things work, so they could evaluate how they would like to be involved. They were a curious bunch with a lot of questions. In particular, they wanted to understand what was in for them, as well as what’s in it for Design Club. This included practical questions, such as how much time is required, level of commitment, and location.
Initially, people viewed the mentoring opportunity as very formalised, where they expected to have some sort of screening during sign up. After signing up, they expect Design Club to equip them with the right skills, and prepare them to be comfortable facilitating kids, mainly through training.
There are also those who have already had experience with mentoring and teaching and feel they can get started with limited supervision. As a result, the level of experience varied, meaning we should have a way to assess where they are (i.e. how comfortable and experienced they are in their profession and learning with kids) so that Design Club can determine their starting point of involvement and training.
During
Observations and co-facilitation as effective ways to train and learn.
Mentors would like to be able to observe a session to understand how it works as well as the context, then get involved once they feel comfortable. The idea of initially helping out at a CoderDojo was perceived positively, as it does not involve too much commitment. It’s a more casual setting, with plenty of other mentors to ask for support.
There were also suggestions of how we can mirror best practices from General Assembly and schools where you start off as a teaching assistant, and gradually overtime teach more and eventually lead the session as a teacher. The training becomes more hands-on, based on exposure to the environment, which will ease a lot of the concerns around classroom management and cater for mixed abilities.
Furthermore, sharing my personal experience and stories working with kids at CoderDojo and Pearson made them feel more prepared and confident in what to look out for. Perhaps having an induction session like this before attending a CoderDojo session will be beneficial, and gives people with the the best chance to enjoy their first mentor experience.
After
Peer-learning support and community is highly valued.
Mentors wanted to be part of the Design Club community where the learning is more organic: through peer-learning from experienced mentors, learning-by-doing, and learning-by-teaching. Having a channel where they can share and learn from each other is important to them whether it is face-to-face in meetups, or digitally through Slack.
Summary
Overall, CoderDojo sessions are a great way to introduce what being a mentor is like in a safe environment with other mentors. It’s important that mentors are able to familiarise themselves with the worksheets, have a point-of-contact to ask any questions or express concerns they have, and possibly pair up with a more experienced mentor.
Additionally, they like the idea of being part of the process of creating a Design Thinking curriculum, by co-creating with other mentors, and getting feedback from running the sessions with kids. It makes it more organic and meaningful to the mentors as the community grows.
