Resources

1. M1. Set up the relationship

   • Mid-August · before classes

   Meeting plan

   Spend the first meeting on how you will work together, not on teaching. Making this explicit now prevents most of the mismatches that otherwise surface in October. Fill in the mentoring compact together, on screen, during this meeting.

   • Ask: What made you want this fellowship — and what do you want to be true in April that is not true today?
   • Ask: What kind of feedback actually helps you? In the moment, in writing, or after you have had time to sit with it?
   • Ask: What stays between us, and what may I share with the program or with your chair?
   • Ask: Where do you want me to push you, and where do you want room to work it out yourself?
   • Ask: What does a bad week look like for you — and how would I know you were having one?
   • Fellow brings: CV, the course they are assigned, and a rough sense of their goals.
   • You both leave with: a completed compact, recurring calendar holds for the semester, and three goals for the year written in the fellow’s own words.

2. M2. Course planning and week one

   • Late August

   Meeting plan

   The syllabus and the first two weeks, in detail. This meeting also carries a hard deadline: CTE program applications are due Monday, August 24, 2026, so confirm the fellow’s choice is submitted before you finish.

   • Ask: Walk me through the first class. What will students be doing in the first twenty minutes?
   • Ask: What are the three things a student must be able to do by the end of this course — and where does the syllabus say so?
   • Ask: Where does a struggling student find out they are struggling, and how early in the term is that?
   • Ask: Which CTE program did you choose, and why that one over the others?
   • Ask: What is the single thing about this course you are most worried about?
   • Fellow brings: draft syllabus, the first two weeks of class plans, and the CTE application.
   • You both leave with: written syllabus feedback, the CTE application submitted, and a date on the calendar for your classroom observation.

3. M3. The first weeks, honestly

   • Early September

   Meeting plan

   Three weeks in, the plan has met the room. This is the meeting where a fellow will tell you something is not working — if you make it safe to say so. Say plainly that a class going badly is normal and is not the thing they are being evaluated on.

   • Ask: What surprised you in the first two weeks?
   • Ask: Where did students get stuck that you did not expect them to?
   • Ask: What did you plan and not get to? What did you cut, and how did you decide?
   • Ask: How do you know whether they are learning — as opposed to whether they are satisfied?
   • Ask: What is taking far more time than you budgeted for?
   • Fellow brings: a piece of student work, and one class that did not go the way they intended.
   • You both leave with: one concrete change to try in the next two weeks, and the observation date confirmed.

4. M4. Pre-observation conference

   • Late September

   Meeting plan

   An observation without a pre-conference collects the wrong evidence. Agree here on what you are looking for, so the fellow owns the focus and your notes answer a question they actually asked. Use part one of the observation protocol. This is also the window in which the fellow attends their own two observation sessions in exemplary engineering courses — ask what they are watching for there, too.

   • Ask: What do you want evidence about? What should I be counting or writing down?
   • Ask: What will students be doing, minute to minute? How long will you talk without interruption?
   • Ask: What would “this went well” look like, described by what students do rather than by how you feel?
   • Ask: Is there anything you would rather I not focus on this time?
   • Ask: Do you want my raw notes, or the organized version?
   • Fellow brings: the lesson plan, the materials students will see, and any context about the group.
   • You both leave with: two or three agreed focus questions, the logistics settled, and the debrief booked within a week of the visit.

5. M5. Observation debrief and mid-semester feedback

   • Mid-October

   Meeting plan

   Order matters here: the fellow reflects first, then you present what you saw as description, then you interpret it together. Pair it with a mid-semester feedback round from students — taken now, there is still time to act on it, which is the entire point.

   • Ask first: Before I say anything — how did that class go, and what would you change?
   • Then describe: Here is what students were doing at each point in the hour. Does that match your sense of it?
   • Then the focus question: You asked me to watch for one thing in particular. Here is the evidence I collected on it.
   • Ask: What is one thing from that class you would keep exactly as it is?
   • Ask: What would make the change you want to make easier to do?
   • Fellow brings: their own written reflection, completed before they read your notes.
   • You both leave with: two or three specific changes, and a plan for collecting mid-semester feedback from students.

6. M6. What the evidence says

   • Late October

   Meeting plan

   Turn the semester’s accumulated evidence — student feedback, assessment results, your observation — into candidate ideas for the spring innovation. The strongest projects come from a problem the fellow has personally watched students hit.

   • Ask: What did the mid-semester feedback actually say, and what had you expected it to say?
   • Ask: Which piece of that is worth fixing this week, and which is worth studying properly next semester?
   • Ask: Where in this course do students reliably get stuck, year after year, whoever teaches it?
   • Ask: If you could change one thing about how this course is taught, what would it be?
   • Ask: What from the monthly workshops or your CTE program might apply here?
   • Fellow brings: the mid-semester feedback summarized, and assessment results so far.
   • You both leave with: two or three candidate ideas for the instructional innovation, written as problems rather than as solutions.

7. M7. Scope the innovation and the question behind it

   • Early November

   Meeting plan

   Narrow one candidate into a question that can be answered inside a single spring course. The most common failure at this stage is scope — a project that would really need three semesters and a research assistant. Work through the project planner.

   • Ask: State the problem as something students do or fail to do — not as a technique you want to try.
   • Ask: What is the question? Could the honest answer turn out to be no?
   • Ask: What would count as evidence that it worked? What would convince a skeptical colleague?
   • Ask: What are you comparing against — a previous semester, another section, the same students before and after?
   • Ask: Is this genuinely feasible in one course while you are teaching two?
   • Fellow brings: a draft problem statement and any literature they have found.
   • You both leave with: one scoped question and an outline of the evidence that will answer it.

8. M8. The proposal, the data, and the IRB

   • Late November

   Meeting plan

   The practical half of the proposal. The question that quietly decides whether this work can ever be published is settled here, not in April: whether the right approvals and consent are in place before data collection starts in January.

   • Ask: What data will you collect, at what points in the term, and who will have access to it?
   • Ask: Does this need IRB review, and by which route? Have you completed the required training?
   • Ask: If you want to publish this, what has to be done before the first day of class?
   • Ask: How will you keep your grading role separate from your role collecting the data?
   • Ask: What is the plan if the data come back thinner or messier than you hope?
   • Fellow brings: the draft proposal and a data plan.
   • You both leave with: a near-final proposal, the IRB route decided, and training scheduled if it is outstanding.

9. M9. Close the fall, set up the spring

   • Early December

   Meeting plan

   A deliberate stocktake against the goals set in August, and an honest look at the jump from one course to two. Produce a short written mid-year summary — it becomes the first half of the joint evaluation in April. Use the growth review.

   • Ask: Against the three goals we wrote in August, where are you?
   • Ask: What are you proudest of this semester? What do you not want to repeat?
   • Ask: You go from one course to two in January. What has to change about how you work?
   • Ask: What support will you need in the spring that you did not need in August?
   • Ask: What do you expect your course evaluations to say — and what will you do if they say something else?
   • Fellow brings: the submitted innovation proposal and a written reflection on the semester.
   • You both leave with: a written mid-year summary and spring meeting dates already on the calendar.

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