DE Mentors
Program Overview
Southwestern College’s Distance Education (DE) Mentor Program pairs trained mentors with fellow faculty members who are seeking to develop their online teaching skills and knowledge. The program’s DE Mentors and Lead DE Mentors have the expertise, experience, and resources to provide support and guidance in a variety of areas related to teaching online and Canvas course design.
Lead DE Mentors organize mentoring for the schools/centers they support—they are the point people to contact about mentoring. In addition to connecting faculty with mentors, they also provide resources and information to the schools/centers.
DE Mentors provide individual and small group mentoring on a wide range of topics related to distance education. With training and experience in online education, DE Mentors can help faculty new to online instruction, faculty taking DEFT or SOLID, and faculty who have been teaching online for a while and are ready to learn a few new tricks.
This one-minute video provides a brief introduction to the DE Mentor Program:
How can a DE Mentor help me?
Mentors can meet with individuals and small groups, currently via SWC Zoom videoconferencing, email, and phone. Here are a few ways mentors can provide support:
- Help with Canvas course design
- Asynchronous online/hybrid/synchronous facilitation strategies and tools
- Advice for faculty preparing to teach online
- Support for faculty taking DEFT, such as discussing sandbox development
- Support for faculty taking SOLID, such as lesson plan design and practice in Zoom
- Guidance regarding regular and substantive interaction requirements and options
- Introduction to new tools and strategies to address common challenges in online instruction
- Help creating videos and custom banners, and integrating them into Canvas
- Tips for making course materials and activities accessible and equitable
We are here to help, so if you have a need that is not on this short list, just ask!
How can I get started?
2022-2023 funding for the DE Mentor Program ended June 30, 2023. We appreciate your patience as we pursue options to provide mentoring for Fall 2023.