College Mentoring Handbook: The Way of the Self-Directed Learner

By James L. Gray, EdD

The Mentoring Handbook invites students to experience the power of learning by adopting the self-directed learning approach to college. Eleven mentoring lessons are presented that reveal winning strategies and conceptual insights on how a student can liberate him or her from the role of passive learner and take personal responsibility for active learning instead of being fed by faculty. The author demystifies the degree and the GPA as the end-game of college, illustrating to students how not to let college get in the way of a good education, which ultimately is to enhance employability potential and build work readiness skill sets. Most important, the mentoring lessons will help students reframe the purpose of college and use the learning experience to transform themselves as competitive job seekers in a murky job market and an uncertain economic landscape. As they rethink the outdated traditional instructor-driven education college model that they have fallen victim to, they become empowered to take control of their professional growth and career aspirations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Feb 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781504981507

James L. Gray, EdD

Dr. Gray has a reputation among his peers as being an engaging public speaker and creator of interactive and thought-provoking student mentoring workshops. In an age of an ever-changing global landscape, he has become a passionate educational advocate for the empowerment of America’s youth, especially young minority men and women. Throughout his professional career, he has devoted time and energy to corporate mentoring and coaching to assist professional staff in improving job performance and career advancement. For the past decade, he has redirected his focus and energy on mentoring and coaching college students. Motivated by an undying passion to inspire a new generation of first-time college students, his aim to ignite a conversation on the importance of incorporating mentoring and coaching as a holistic approach to academic performance and career development. Dr. Gray earned a master’s degree in social work from West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia; a master’s degree in business administration from the University of the District of Columbia in Washington, DC; and a doctorate in urban leadership education from Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland.

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© 2016 James L. Gray, Ed. D. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse   02/01/2017

ISBN: 978-1-5049-8151-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-8150-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016903111

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Why Write The College Mentoring Handbook?

A New Perspective on College Engagement

Who’s the Audience?

Organization of the Mentoring Handbook

Mentoring Lesson 1: Reframing the College Experience

Demystifying the College Degree

Becoming a Self-Directed Learner

The Student-Consumer Metaphor

The Self-Directed Learner as Consumer

Taking Personal Responsibility for Learning

Beyond the Degree and GPA

Mentoring Lesson 2: Managing the College Experience

The Student Manager

Time Is on Your Side

Managing the Learning Process

Managing Course Work

Managing Faculty Relationships

Managing Your Career Path

Managing Peer Relationships

Managing Work Readiness Opportunities

Time Management Tools

Mentoring Lesson 3: Blueprinting the Path to Success

Your Educational Journey Requires a Plan

The Student Employment Development Plan

Deciding on a Career

Setting Goals for the Journey

Student Employment Development Plan Benefits

Evaluating Personal Progress

Mentoring Lesson 4: Building Employability Potential

Building Work Readiness Skill Sets

Executive Functioning Skills

Soft Skills

Global Workplace Skill Sets

Digital Technology Skills

Personal and Workplace Values

Personal Values Appraisal Profile

Documenting Employability Potential

Organizing a College Portfolio

Mentoring Lesson 5: Collaborative Learning

Learning Is Not a Spectator Sport

Why Form Learning Groups?

The Transformative Power of Learning Groups

Suggestions for Forming a Learning Group

Faculty Engagement Matters

Benefits from Faculty Engagement

Mentoring Lesson 6: The Mind of the Self-Directed Learner

Success Means Taking Charge

Opening Unlocked Doors to Resources

Leadership Development Opportunities

Professional Affiliations

Travel Abroad Opportunities

Mentoring Lesson 7: Constructing a Resume

The Professional Introduction Document

Making Resumes Sparkle

Organizing and Formatting Your Resume

Resumes Must Fit the Occasion

Globalizing Your Resume

Posting an Online Digital Resume

Writing Resume Cover Letters

Handling Reference Letters

Resurrecting the Biographical Statement

Preparing a Curricula Vitae

Mentoring Lesson 8: The Work Experience Mind-Set

From Internships to the Mothership

Work Opportunities Exist in Every Community

Making Work Experiences Count

Internships Produce Big Benefits

Interviewing for Internships, Etc.

How to Exit an Internship

Journal Your Internship Experiences

Mentoring Lesson 9: Interviewing with Confidence

Factors Making for a Favorable Interview

Journal Interview Lessons Learned

Getting Noticed

Common Interview Methods

The Informational Interview

The Power of the Informational Interview

The Hidden Job Market

Scheduling Informational Interviews

The Job Search Is a Planned Activity

Mentoring Lesson 10: Making Contacts Count

Leveraging Relationships

Building a Power Social Network

Networking Tools and Actors

Mining Network Assets

Social Networks and the Job Search

Behind Every Business Card Is a Social Network

The Student Business Card

Social Network Functionality Inventory

The Universality of Social Networking

Cultivating and Managing Contacts

Creating Encounter Agendas

Mentoring Lesson 11: Establishing Mentoring Relationships

Finding the Right Mentor

Protocol for Finding a Mentor

Author’s Final Thoughts

The Mentoring Handbook is

dedicated to the first-generation college students arriving on campuses today armed with passion and renewed hope for a bright future in a brave new world.

Foreword

The primary aim of this handbook is to introduce the college student—traditional or nontraditional—to a pragmatic approach focusing on applying useful strategies and tools to becoming an effectual self-directed learner in the twenty-first century and beyond. This handbook is not only designed to stimulate the interest of various types of college students in how they may exert themselves via the college experience for the global economy, but also to take the college students’ learning goals and put them into transformative action during the actual learning process.

The journey to enroll in college today and the experience that the college student will have in the walls of the learning environment diverge sensationally from prior explanations for why a college education is so vital. Thus, in this handbook, the trending of a successful college student through the years of acquiring the college education and experience seemed not to necessarily portray a degree-seeking need, but it is predicated upon the following three essential tenets—purposeful learning, personal development, and self-directed learning.

For many years, the college experience has been about the same (or sustained relatively inconsequential changes): enroll, choose a major, manage expectations, purchase books and resource materials, attend the lectures, nurture collegiate relationships, perform assignments, take the tests, obtain the grades, graduate, go out and interview for a job, get hired, and pay back loans and other debts. However, this handbook could not have come at a better time than now, as it boosts the necessity of the college student to catch up with the current times through a hands-on mentoring resource book that provides a dose of empowerment and inspiration for the college as well as post-college real world awakenings. If the college is measuring up to preparing students for lasting and productive experiences or not, this college mentoring handbook is unwaveringly recommended as a guide for paradigm shift of the college student in becoming a successful self-directed learner.

The handbook features key mentoring lessons that can be easily followed (as a recipe) in any order, as preferred by the college student for guidance. Designed to stand alone, each lesson provides the college student an awesome growth experience.

At the onset of reading this handbook, the college student is encouraged to invest effort and time focusing on the factual stories contained in the mentoring lessons and, also, to reflect on impacts of the aforementioned tenets for the college engagement, experience, and exit to the real world.

John T. Wulu Jr., PhD

Associate professor (adjunct), University of Maryland University College; professor (adjunct), Montgomery College, Maryland

Preface

My insatiable passion to mentor college kids provides the starting point for writing the Mentoring Handbook. Concerned with what I came to view as a conventional or passive engagement approach to college, I wanted to offer students an alternative approach. What I came up with is what I later referred to as a self-directed learning approach, where students take personal responsibility for active learning, instead of being fed by faculty. Sadly, too many students are going off to college to engage in what I view as a traditional educational system that is passive in its approach to teaching.

The world has changed, but it does not seem, at least to me, that our education system has changed over the years to accommodate the new demands and realities brought about by a nascent global economy. Looking back, it’s clear that the system has not made any notable structural changes from the time I started elementary school in the fall of 1949, nearly seven decades ago, to the present time. Students are merely viewed as empty vessels to be stuffed with information to prepare them for testing.

At the end of each school year, for the last five graduating classes, I have encountered students who are like lost balls in tall weeds. Interestingly enough, academic performance is never the issue. These kids graduate with GPAs well over 3.0 with degrees in marketable career fields but have no idea how to go about the business of looking for a job. In fact, many of them showed no signs of having significant work-ready skill sets. Of course, they won’t say this is the case, but after a conversation with them it becomes apparent that they are passive learners. They absorbed the lectures, read the assigned books, and passed the exams. It is very much like Mark Twain remarked in a speech: Students do not often (have) time get a good education because they let school get in the way. Listening to passive lectures and memorizing information solely for the purpose of getting good grades on exams is a prime example of school getting in the way of a good education.

For many students and parents, college can be a scary time. It is a life-changing event that brings