Critically Examine How Assessment and Learning Is Facilitated in Your Essay

Critically Examine How Assessment and Learning Is Facilitated in Your Work Community Setting - Essay Example This paper attempts to explore the role of mentorship in a clinical setting wherein learning and assessment is facilitated through a deeper understanding of the learning environment, the needs of the environment and the learner’s and the mentor’s qualifications, requirements in terms of planning the learning, tools and techniques, assessments, relationship between the mentor and mentee, lifecycle of the relationship and the challenges in the learning and development process for both the learner or mentee and the mentor. Definitions of what mentoring is all about, the learning setting, process, facilitation, assessment, outcomes, roles, etc. will help in understanding the above. What is mentoring? McKimm et al (2007) observe that defining the term ‘mentoring’ is a difficult task as it is a complex process and depends mostly on the learning environment and the interpretation of the environment’s needs by the various different individuals or groups. Quo ting Megginson and Clutterbuck (1995, p13) they note that â€Å"mentoring is ‘off line help by one person to another in making significant transitions in knowledge, work or thinking’† and that the role of a mentor is to help and guide the learner through a transition phase of the learner in a particular aspect like learning and other professional or personal circumstances. Also, mentoring is just one form of support (p1). â€Å"Mentoring is a transformational process that seeks to help individuals develop and use knowledge to improve themselves on an ongoing basis. It is a professional dialogue that encourages reflection and development, signposting mentees to other sources of help as required† (What is mentoring, 2012). General medical practice describes it as â€Å"‘a way of helping another understand more fully, and learn comprehensively from, their day to day experience† and a commissioned department of health describes it as a â€Å"proc ess whereby an experienced, highly regarded, empathic person (the mentor), guides another individual (the mentee) in the development and re-examination of their own ideas, learning, and personal and professional development† (What is mentoring, 2012). Palermo and McCall (2008, p801) note that mentoring is a form of providing experiential learning where the learning is actual and practical, and it is seen that the learning will be ineffective and unsafe if there is no mentoring offered during the course of the experiential learning. Mentoring and teaching There is a need to understand the difference between teaching and mentoring as it is essential to get the desired outcomes. McKimm and Jollie (2007) have differentiated between teaching and mentoring: while teaching is said to be a ‘teacher centred’ approach, mentoring is understood to be a ‘student centred’ approach where the learning needs of the learner are taken into consideration along with regul ar assessments of the same. Teaching itself is continually evolving to reflect on experience and critically explore the potential transformation of the learner. The basis for this evolution is the action research teaching need that recognizes that experiential learning leads to both the mentor and mentee contributing to the sustainability of the learning in the particular setting. To achieve sustainability through developing significant insights into the learning environment,