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Discussion on: I've wrapped up a successful mentorship on Dev.to - AMA

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lightalloy profile image
Anna Buianova

Thanks for the answer! A couple of more questions if that's possible:

  • Were you using coding exercising while teaching? (like exercism exercises or similar)
  • Did you pair-program with your mentee?
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recursivefaults profile image
Ryan Latta
  1. We did do some coding exercises together. We'd use various tools to do that, but the problems would be either ones I gave or ones that they brought to noodle over.

  2. Yes. Towards the end of our time, we'd pair almost every week. I think pairing is a vital technique for any developer to be comfortable with, and when it comes to mentoring its the best way to provide immediate feedback to not only the code but what different approaches exist to the problem.

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lightalloy profile image
Anna Buianova

Thanks again ) One last question: how much time were you spending a week on mentoring (including preparing/planning)?

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recursivefaults profile image
Ryan Latta

Most weeks were not much more than a 30-45 minute phone call and an occasional email here and there.

Towards the end, we'd have more than one session a week so we'd get closer to 2-3 hours a week across two calls/pairing.

In terms of prep, the only prep that I would do regularly was review notes from our last conversation so I could pick up the conversation where we left off. So maybe a 2-3 minutes of prep on that end.

I think I easily could have and maybe should think about how much better I could have been if I set more time aside to prepare. At the same time, I've mentored people previously that wanted nearly the exact same goals, so the territory was pretty familiar almost the entire time.

For people who are getting used to mentoring I'd recommend something a bit more specific. First, I'd recommend mentors intentionally create a, "Mentoring Stance." This is isn't anything magical, but its the version of you that is closer to an ideal mentor while remaining genuine. Spend time before each session looking at your stance and learn enough about yourself so that you can adopt that stance prior to the conversation. Also, review the goals, relationship, and past few sessions of notes. Look for trends or common things. The last thing before the conversation starts is to make their agenda the only one that matters.

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lightalloy profile image
Anna Buianova

Thanks for the detailed answers, Ryan.