In this post, I want to share my experience facilitating a scholarship program called IDCamp 2023 by Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison Digital Camp and Dicoding Indonesia for 4 months. It was my first time mentoring and I wanted to ensure my 25 students maximized their chances of passing.
Why I Became a Facilitator
As a self-taught developer, I struggled to learn without guidance. It made me realize how much easier learning can be with support and guidance. I also wanted to help others avoid the challenges I faced, like imposter syndrome, and the difficulty of gauging learning progress.
There's a quote by Richard Feynman that inspired me:
"The best way to understand something is to explain it to someone else."
Challenges and Solutions
Planning and Creating a Mentoring System
Since I was new to this, I wasn't sure where to start. I created a simple dashboard in Notion to organize resources, communication templates, and ideas. This proved valuable as the program progressed that allowed me to easily refer back to past information.
Communicating Effectively with Mentees
The program was online, which presented communication challenges. We primarily used a WhatsApp group, which can be asynchronous, leading to slow responses or students being hesitant to ask questions in a large group. So, I provided resources regularly to stimulate discussion and reached out to quieter students individually.
Encouraging Active Participation
Keeping students engaged was difficult at times. The group could get quiet with minimal responses. To address this, I introduced some friendly competition by providing weekly reports on group progress, keeping everyone motivated, and emphasizing that they could ask questions freely. This is an area I'd like to learn more about, as it's crucial for a positive mentee experience.
Tracking and Encouraging Mentee Progress
The goal was to ensure all students passed within the program timeline. My group had a mix of students: some who passed quickly, some who needed more help, and unfortunately, a few who went missing in action (AWOL). For struggling students, I reached out personally to understand the reason behind their slow progress. Some were busy with school or work, while others simply disappeared. This taught me the importance of considering students' personal lives.
Teaching and Explaining Coding Concepts Live
I was responsible for holding eight live study sessions where students could ask questions and discuss topics. I worried about what to do if students ran out of questions and how to keep the sessions valuable. Inspired by tech YouTubers like Primeagen and Theo, I decided to conduct live coding sessions after Q&A. We built real-world projects using FrontEndMentor. This was well-received by students and pushed my own understanding to the limit as I explained concepts on the fly. It also helped me identify any gaps in my knowledge.
Engaging Students in Live Sessions
I believe learning from mistakes is a powerful tool, and using a personal touch can boost engagement. Therefore, I incorporated live code reviews into some sessions. I reviewed student projects, focusing on refactoring, best practices, and bug fixes. Students appreciated these sessions as they could see where their approach went wrong when building their projects. This also made the learning more relevant as they could see how things work in production. Additionally, it increased their participation as they could pinpoint their areas of confusion.
Mentees Growth
Several mentees stepped outside their comfort zones by exploring new areas on their own like TypeScript and other technologies.
They gained valuable insights on how to learn and solve programming problems independently.
Some mentees even helped each other with concepts they learned.
The Rewards
Over the course of eight live sessions, my speech delivery improved significantly by constant feedback from my mentees. My understanding of related topics also deepened as I had to ensure clear explanations for my mentees. Lastly, I gained valuable connections with other facilitators and mentees.
Galleries
Looking Forward
My experience as a mentor in IDCamp2023 was incredibly rewarding. Witnessing my mentees' success and growth was truly fulfilling that make me eager to continue my journey as a mentor and meet new people. I'm committed to developing my skills in effective mentoring and communication to ensure an even more positive experience for future mentees. Also, I'm actively seeking new mentoring opportunities to put my learnings into practice.
Iām still far from being a great mentor, I deeply appreciate any insights and advice from you guys!
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