Schooling Options

Virtual Mentoring

Virtual Mentoring is a suitable method of mentoring for students from geographically isolated schools in country Victoria. The teacher contacts a university and together the university and the school find suitable tertiary students to become mentors for secondary students. Under supervision the student and mentor agree on a research project which the student will work on. The idea of the program is to extend each student's abilities for independent research in an area of interest negotiated between mentor and student.

How Virtual Mentoring works

After an initial face-to-face meeting organised by the school, communication between student and mentor can be conducted online. To facilitate communication throughout the program, a closed conference list can be established whereby all students, teachers and mentors would have access to all emails that are posted. Evaluation from previous programs has shown that communication was vital to the success of the program.

The work undertaken may take the form of a work requirement, or work in lieu of regular class work, that is included within the core curriculum of the student's studies or it may be work completed as part of an elective.

For more information see the Virtual Mentoring Guidelines (PDF - 240Kb)