Student Mentoring: Adult College Engagement and Migrant Youth Education
Overview
Mentoring has a positive impact on student outcomes, including self-confidence, future aspirations, grade point average and persistence rates. The NCTN created tools and increased participants’ knowledge about mentorship through our Adult College Engagement and Migrant Youth Education projects.
Our mentoring projects are designed to get new college students through the critical periods when they are most likely to drop out:
- the period between acceptance and when classes begin;
- the first month of classes;
- mid-terms;
- the end of the first semester; and
- while planning/waiting to enroll in 2nd semester.
Adult College Engagement (ACE)
ACE strengthened the persistence and success of the adult learners who participated in this promising peer mentoring model. Two community colleges collaborated in ACE. The mentoring program offered services to 16 adult learners who were enrolled in college transition, high school equivalency, and ESOL classes from three Boston-area adult learning programs. 14 of the 16 participating mentees (88%) started their first term of college, and upon the successful completion of their first term, all 14 enrolled in their second semester of their respective college. The project refined a replicable, scalable model for peer mentoring for adult education programs to customize for their learners.
Project Director: Priyanka Sharma, NCTN Coordinator
Funder: The Shapiro Foundation
Migrant Youth Education: Strategies, Opportunities, and Services for Out of School Youth Consortium
Educators working with migrant out-of-school youth in Graduation and Outcomes for Success for Out-of-School Youth (GOSOSY) Consortium are utilizing, adapting and customizing the mentoring model from the NCTN’s customizable Mentoring Toolkit. Starting with a subset of the 17 member states, pilots implement the model with coaching and support from the NCTN team.
Feedback from these initial efforts informed the creation of the resource, Toolkit for Building an Effective Out-of-School-Youth Mentoring Program. The mentoring program is slated to roll out to all 17 member states in 2018.
Project Director: Priyanka Sharma, NCTN Coordinator
Funder: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Migrant Education
Further Information
Learn more about the NCTN’s tools and approach by:
- Exploring the Mentoring Toolkit to see how it may serve as a guide for customization.
- Reading an interview with two students involved in ACE.
- Reading Mentoring for Student Success, written by NCTN Director Ellen Hewett.