[Events] how to approach disengaged attendees

[sheila miguez]

I do not have a reference for you, but a request for content.

When giving advice to mentors on how to approach students, include advice
on when a student presents as confused/frustrated/disengaged but is not
actually so, or perhaps wishes to keep at a task on their own despite
finding it challenging.

I remember an event I once attended where I wanted to sit in back to be
able to observe a class and was told to sit close to the front despite
having what I felt were legitimate reasons to sit behind other students. If
it is possible, give advance on finding a balance between working with a
student's preferences versus encouraging recommended preferences. Perhaps
my preferences were invalid, perhaps not. A mentor doesn't know, so I think
it is good of them to gently push in order for a student to get the most
out of a class. But not too hard.

In a similar vein, sometimes a person attempting to help can increase the
amount of thinking required to do a task. For example, if someone is like
me, they might get anxious when interacting with someone depending on the
situation.

A mentor is not going to be able to read minds and all of the cues that
tells them to back off versus approach, but perhaps you could have a
sentence or two explaining sometimes that a soft approach is good, and that
there are cues they might see to find that they can have a friendly retreat
if the soft approach did not work.


On Thu, Jan 23, 2014 at 2:27 PM, Shauna Gordon-McKeon <shaunagm at gmail.com>wrote:

> I'm writing up a guide for mentors at our events, and I want to include a
> section on how to approach students that look
> confused/frustrated/disengaged.  Surely these strategies have been written
> about before!  Does anyone have suggestions of what to read and adapt for
> our guide?
>
> ~ Shauna
>
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> Events at lists.openhatch.org
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>


-- 
sheila
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