Process Overviews

Deliver Asha’s mentoring journey spans four years of high school. Mentees begin the journey in their freshman year and complete it upon graduation in their senior year.

The learning objectives, case study materials, and key activities for mentoring workshops are tailored to provide students with relevant and useful information appropriate to their grade level. 

Beginning in the sophomore year, mentors and mentees meet one-on-one at the start of each school year to reflect on the previous year’s progress and challenges and to review any changes in academic or career interests.

The outline below provides an overview of the key objectives for the mentoring workshops each year.

Freshman year:

• Lay the foundation for building an authentic, trusted, long-term mentor-mentee relationship.
• Acclimate mentees to the high school environment and raise awareness of available services, including guidance counselors and clubs.
• Explore mentees’ personal values, hobbies, academic and extracurricular interests, and learning challenges in greater depth, including discussing strengths and areas of growth.
• Create a personalized Mentoring Journey Map that outlines ideas mentors could incorporate into workshop lesson plans to tailor the experience for each mentee.
• Conduct workshops on foundational skills that translate into effective study habits, time management, and awareness of how personal values and beliefs shape everyday choices.

Sophomore year:

• Conduct workshops to practice the five essential skills for managing everyday situations in line with personal values.
• Organize field trips to local businesses, industries, and organizations to observe how employees and team members collaborate to achieve the company’s mission.
• Invite guest speakers from local organizations to share their views on how they have observed the 10 core life traits apply to their personal and professional roles.

Junior year:

• Conduct workshops to raise awareness of key factors to consider when exploring postsecondary education options, including preferred specialization, school location, and career interests.
• Conduct workshop sessions that explore different career paths and their associated education, skills, job outlook, and compensation ranges.
• Conduct workshop sessions on the importance of networking and cultivating professional connections.
• Conduct workshops to identify community improvement projects and develop project plans to implement them.

Senior year:

• Conduct workshops to prepare mentees for life after graduation, focusing on financial literacy and decision-making strategies that promote long-term thinking.
• Conduct workshops to encourage mentees to build support networks aligned with their values and interests beyond high school.
• Execute plans to implement community improvement projects identified in Junior year.
• Review the four-year mentoring experience, highlighting key moments, and gather suggestions to improve the program for future mentees.

Inquiry-based learning (IBL) is a student-centered approach in which the teacher shifts from lecturing to facilitating. The teacher provides the question, process, and materials, and students follow the steps. Teachers support the process by offering guidance and resources.

The IBL approach encourages students to develop critical thinking, problem-solving, and independence by shifting from rote memorization to active exploration, often through hands-on activities and group projects that enhance learning. 

This approach also promotes student responsibility for their learning by prompting them to ask questions, investigate real-world problems, and deepen their understanding through hands-on experimentation and discovery. Rather than passively absorbing facts, students gain knowledge through active engagement.

The jigsaw method is an effective interactive learning technique developed by Elliot Aronson. The Jigsaw method promotes student interdependence and individual accountability, fostering a deeper understanding of the topics or problems discussed.

Deliver Asha mentoring workshops using the jigsaw method, feature case studies that incorporate three or four learning objectives that strengthen a combination of our 10 traits.

Assuming there are 16 students in the workshop, and the case study has four topics/learning objectives, the mentoring workshop process using the jigsaw learning method would involve:

Stage 1: Form Home Group & Assign Topic/Learning Objective

• Mentors divide the total number of students into four “home groups” of four students per group.
• Each member of a home group is then assigned a distinct topic/learning objective from the four.
• The students with the same topic/learning objective from each home group form new groups. Groups of four students with the same assignment are called “expert groups.”

Stage 2: Expert Group Review & Analysis of Assigned Topic/Learning Objective

• The “expert groups” study and discuss their assigned topic in depth.
• To ensure each student can confidently share their understanding of the assigned topic with the other students in their original home group, they prepare notes and practice presenting their knowledge.

Stage 3: Return to Home Group & Share Knowledge of Topic/Learning Objective

• Once the “expert group” members are knowledgeable about their assigned topic, they return to their original home groups to share what they’ve learned.
• The other students in the home group (with different assigned topics) are encouraged to ask questions for clarification as needed.
• Mentors observe the presentations and ask open-ended questions to encourage discussion, helping everyone gain a clear understanding of the learning objectives.

Stage 4: Jointly Verify Learning Objectives Are Achieved and Wrap-up

• In the final step, the entire class of 16 students reconvenes, and mentors facilitate structured discussions to help students from each home group ask clarifying questions of students from other groups. This step helps eliminate misunderstandings and fosters a shared understanding of the topics and related learning objectives among all participants.

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