Mentor Requirements & Responsibilities

The mentor is the most powerful aspect of the MAT FasTrack program. When our students work with a classroom mentor, they receive an authentic classroom experience.

Mentor Requirements

  • Currently teach in student’s desire license area/field of study
  • Hold a Tier 2 license (for field experience) or Tier 3 or 4 license (for student teaching)
  • Have at least 3 years of full-time teaching experience
  • Mentor completes the Mentor Application

For Mentors

  1. A completed Mentor Application is required for each student in our program.
  2. This presentation will provide additional details about the requirements and expectations of mentors in our program.

Mentor Responsibilities

  • Give BSU faculty feedback on student progress in the classroom. An email to fastrack@bemidjistate.edu will always get to the right person for your questions or concerns apart from the open discussions.
  • Support the pre-service teacher candidate to find field experience venues where they gain a varied grade level experience. The student’s field experience expectations are 20-60 hours per semester. Student teaching is done in the student’s final semester and BSU will assign the school and teacher supervisor.
  • Act as a coach and mentor as needed, and answer questions posed by the student regarding experiences with certain key elements of successful pedagogy such as how to motivate students and differentiate instruction.
  • Serve as resource as the teacher candidate completes classroom tasks (Examples of classroom tasks: observation, working with individual and small groups of students, co-teaching or teaching a lesson, collaborating with classroom teacher, grading papers)
  • Sign field experience forms to confirm that teacher candidate served completed recorded hours.

Your estimated commitment per semester will vary between 20-60 hours.

Thank you for considering the opportunity to become a mentor.