Increasing Accessibility to Mentorships and Internships Through Mentored Industry Projects 

Even though National Mentoring Month has come to a close on the calendar,  the momentum from mentoring practices continues to shape classroom teachings and mentor-mentee relationships. An impactful way to continue mentoring best practices with your students is to integrate mentoring into your planning through work-based learning. Providing different ways for both mentors and mentees to engage meets the diverse needs of students and educators and strengthens your existing work-based learning program. 

Mentoring and Work-Based Learning: 

Work-based learning seeks to meaningfully connect students and professionals through intentional interactions and ongoing engagements. Traditional mentoring relationships often meet student needs, but require a long-term commitment from both the mentor and mentee. This can be daunting or hinder some partners from even getting started with a mentoring program. NAF has a solution for that and offers strategies to connect mentors with students in shorter, more focused, meetings. 

Facing challenges implementing mentoring at your school? Take a look at the featured practices and consider them for your classroom mentoring program. 

WBL Focus: Mentored Industry Projects: 

Mentored industry projects provide authentic learning experiences, in which students connect with industry mentors to address challenges and solve problems in a community or industry. Industry mentors guide project work, offering feedback and direction throughout the entire process. Students develop skills through professional interactions and understand alignment between classroom content and their career aspirations. Mentored industry projects are an innovative and effective opportunity for bringing mentoring into the classroom and collaborating with professionals, who may not otherwise have time to engage in traditional mentoring programs. 

 Key elements of mentored industry projects include: 

• Community Based Challenges: Project challenges are partner provided, allowing students to address real-world situations impacting their community. Some challenges stem directly from projects the partner company is working on, while others are community challenges noticed by students. 
• Mentors as Project Advisors: Unlike traditional projects where professionals serve only as evaluators, mentored industry projects involve partners throughout the project development implementation and evaluation process. Mentors provide feedback and industry insights, as students work toward project conclusion. 
• Career Exploration and Skill Development: Mentored industry projects create a  natural space for conversations about the mentor’s career path and industry needs. Additionally, mentees develop future ready skills through project work and professional interactions throughout the mentored project process. 

Best Practices From the Network:

• Joy Tavano, North Keystone High School, Academy of Finance 
  • Creating Projects 
    • In her pilot year, Ms. Tavano was able to connect with many partners across the nation to provide new and unique mentored industry projects for her students. The first project entailed partnering with a maker lab, a business that designs and produces prototypes for inventors and entrepreneurs, to increase sales. Using design thinking, the students brainstormed solutions, created a business plan to increase visibility and sales, and finally pitched the solution to the business partner. Following this road map, she has been able to secure additional projects. These include working with Carolina Tiger Rescue, to help solve their volunteer shortage problem and working with a recruiting agency to help solve an internal culture issue, brought on by the isolation of remote workers due to the pandemic.

“Mentored-industry projects allow students that normally wouldn’t have the availability to complete a traditional outside-the-classroom internship to participate in a meaningful work-based learning experience, while learning invaluable and transferable skills throughout the process.” – Joy Tavano

• Heather Hartmann, Clarence Central School District, Academy of Business & Finance
  • Increasing Mentor Engagement 
    • Mrs. Hartman implemented high-quality mentored industry projects for her students in her pilot year. Looking forward to next semester, one area of improvement she was focused on was recruiting engaged mentors. She has successfully enlisted around 75-90 business partners to work one on one with students, yielding more individualized attention and more fulfilling experiences. She has fused their traditional 3 year mentor program with these new opportunities (mentored industry projects) – allowing mentors and business partners to have higher visibility and impact with her students. 

Resources: 

As you engage mentors, consider NAF’s current Mentoring Resources. This list includes both NAF created resources and links to outside resources that highlight best practices.  Additional resources will be developed throughout 2023. 

We were able to provide the training and resources necessary for our educators to implement these projects thanks to our partnership with District C. Learn more about their work and how to get involved.