Since the 1990s, Tutoring Networks has constituted a revolutionary educational movement that promotes learning and personal growth through a mentoring relationship. This powerful educational connection is based on dialogue, reflection and collaboration, and its impact has gone beyond the borders of Mexico, reaching countries such as the United States, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore. In recognition of its valuable approach, the HundrED Foundation has highlighted it among the most promising educational innovation practices around the world between 2018 and 2021.
To find out more about the most recent experience of this initiative, we talked to Araceli Castillo, the academic coordinator at Tutoring Networks, Dalila López, a teacher, and Adán Rivera, an educational advisor. With them we explored the components of the mentoring relationship and the incorporation of technologies during the evolution of the programme, analysing their benefits and limitations in promoting and transforming learning.
The mentoring relationship: commitment, dialogue, humanity and autonomy
The mentoring relationship is based on a learning agreement between two people, one who mentors and the other who’s mentored, with the aim of imparting knowledge and developing skills. Its participants display a commitment to devote time to promoting activities geared towards achieving these objectives. The roles of tutor and tutoree can be assumed by teachers and students, but also by teacher and/or student peers, forming a cyclical learning network.
What articulates the mentoring relationship, beyond the means by which it is materialised, is respect for the human condition of the other, which makes it applicable at any level inside and outside the classroom.
For the promoters of Tutoring Networks, apart from the methodological components, the mentoring is regarded as a form of human relationship based on three principles: (i) a genuine dialogue, “a two-way process that’s more profound than the simple pedagogical question and answer routine”, (ii) a personal relationship that fully embraces the participants, taking into account “their ways of thinking and their human situation when working together”, and (iii) the promotion of autonomy during learning. With regard to these principles, Dalila López emphasises: “It isn’t a support mechanism running parallel to school life, almost always with vertical uni-directional relationships. What articulates this relationship, beyond the means with which it’s materialised, is respect for the other person’s human condition, making it applicable at any level in and outside the classroom”. As for this dimension, Araceli Castillo points out that “the mentoring relationship transforms you, and, based on its philosophy, it goes beyond formal learning spaces, positioning you before the other person on equal terms, with respect and love for his/her learning”. The image below illustrates the cycle of the mentoring relationship and its roles.
The Mentoring Cycle-Tutoring Networks (Mexico)
Technologies at the service of the mentoring relationship
“The first time I tried to use technology for a tutorial was in around 2000. We were trying to do it via Google chat, but it was difficult. I wanted my colleague to define vertex. During in-person tutoring, all you have to do is use your finger and point to the drawing, but it was more complex with messages”. This anecdote narrated by Dalila illustrates how the use of technologies in learning processes has evolved at different times, adapting to the changes and challenges faced by the initiative.
In the 2007-2012 period, with the support of the Undersecretary of Basic Education in Mexico, the programme addressed the challenge of promoting tutorials at approximately 9,000 schools with low results in the ENLACE national measurement for mathematics and Spanish. To achieve the above, strategies were designed for its scalability and work was done with the teachers on their mentoring training. The idea of creating “learning nodes”, meeting and experimentation spaces for teachers, then arose: “We needed to multiply ourselves and generate groups of teachers who’d experience the mentoring relationship horizontally, because our training is mainly demonstrative and experiential”, explained Dalila.
This challenge led to the design of a digital platform, paying particular attention to the tutorial’s components and their interactions. Replicating human interaction with technology was a major challenge. To overcome it, the developers were invited to attend the tutorials. Constant communication between the teams was essential to adapt the programme without it losing its essence.
In keeping with these principles for the meeting between tutors and students, a virtual mentoring experience began to be developed shortly before the start of the pandemic. “It was a platform you could sign up for, enabling you to search for topics of interest and connect with available people who could tutor you”, explained Adán Rivera. With this tool the participants were able to experience the full mentoring cycle. Moreover, this initiative was able to connect with rural populations with little or no connectivity. Adán recalls that the people used the tool in different ways, e.g. to connect and then develop the tutorial outside the platform or via WhatsApp or other more common applications within their contexts: “Curiously, the group of indigenous education teachers in Nayarit, the ones who had the most difficulties connecting, were those who were most helped by this platform in channelling the process and the tutor relationship meetings”.
As a result of the conditions caused by the pandemic and the genuine interest in continuing the mentoring relationship project, the CART (National Network of Learning Communities in Mentoring Relationships) was created. Technologies have allowed them not only to launch the initiative, but also to enter into dialogues with professionals who promote the strategy in Mexico and the rest of the world.
Digital tools allow you to build more horizontal relationships with knowledge and are therefore necessary when, as in the mentoring relationship, you give autonomy to the student and allow them to develop skills according to their interests.
Limitations and benefits of technologies
The use of technologies in the construction of the mentoring relationship has enabled us to understand their obstacles and acknowledge their contributions. In this respect, the promoters identify the frequent difficulty in gaining access to a stable connection and suitable devices as technical limitations that affect the smooth running of the interactions. In addition, the meeting dynamics experienced in a virtually format are different and they require a new form of dialogue. As Araceli pointed out, “when you’re on the platform, you can only see a part of the person and their camera is often turned off, so you have to learn to read in a different way and identify the questions that aren’t asked… you have to design other strategies to support your tutoree”.
Moreover, Dalila recognises that the technologies impose certain limitations on the conception of the tools, promoting certain types of practices mediated by factors related to financing and access to innovations. This was a problem in the design of the initial platforms. Dalila provides one example: “We imagined that it would allow us to display and demonstrate the content on a blackboard and generate records of the learning process, but it wasn’t possible at the time. Now it’s something that can be developed through video call platforms, grouping together different functions at the service of learning”.
Technologies are also associated with barriers hindering the development of digital skills and experience with applications. Adán acknowledges that, during the pandemic, the teachers faced the challenge of developing their tutorials in a virtual format with different degrees of technological adaptation. “Some were able to incorporate applications to work live, while others depended on the help of their relatives to connect. We gradually adapted to all these realities”. Another added challenge, adds Adán, is related to the personal assessment of the technologies: “Our ideas about virtual and in-person learning facilitate or restrict what we can do. The barrier is often not to be found in the tool”.
Regarding their benefits, digital tools allow us to build more horizontal relationships with knowledge, which is why they’re necessary when, as occurs in the mentoring relationship, you grant autonomy to the students and let them develop skills in keeping with their interests. Dalila explains it as follows: “Technology is necessary when you develop the students’ autonomy; it’s even more necessary than when you don’t have it. Its absence won’t be so keenly felt in a conventional classroom, because the teacher is the administrator of the information. When you allow the students to develop skills in accordance with their interests, as the mentoring relationship does, access to information soon becomes a difficulty, and I’m not just referring to document repositories, but also to the possibility of interacting with different specialists and projects to further this capacity for autonomy in the learning experience”.
Practised since ancient times, tutorials have always proved to be an effective way of learning. The development of digital technologies has also led to them becoming one of the most cost-effective methods for improving educational results in vulnerable environments.
