Meet with the student and establish the terms of your relationship. Negotiate a verbal or written agreement with the student that outlines how you will work as their mentor to help them identify, plan and achieve their educational goals. A commitment of at least a year is a good guide to entering a mentoring relationship. Plan to have an open door policy and schedule up to an hour each month for regular discussion and review of goals and achievements.
Start by having the student describe their life goals and values. One technique that can help students approach this is to ask them to imagine writing their memoirs at an old age, and set out what they'd like to be able to say. Decide what the most important goals are and use them to create a 25 year time-line. Use the time-line to have the student link their life time goals to the education and qualifications needed to achieve them. This becomes their long-term goal plan and will serve as the guide for planning short-term goals.
Continue the time-line process and have the student break down the 25 year plan to create a 5 year plan, then a 1 year plan, and finally a semester plan. Make sure the student includes goals for time with family and friends, finances, health, leisure and personal values along with their educational goals in all these plans. The semester plan outlines the student’s short-term goals.
Introduce the SMART system for the student to use when describing each of their goals. SMART is an anagram to remind the student that successful performance goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timebound. For example, one goal might be to get a B in a physics course, and another to turn in all assignments one day before their due date.
Plan regular monthly meetings to recognize achievements, work out strategies to deal with difficulties, and remind the student of their long-term goal. As a mentor, your view of the student’s capabilities will strongly influence their belief in their ability to achieve their goals. Praise success and encourage the student to use failures as a way to make positive changes and recognize distractions. Students are most susceptible to distractions as a way of relieving the pressures of short-term goals and need to be reminded that these lead away from the road to their long-term goals.
Share with the student in appreciating their success in short-term goals. Encourage them as short-term goal setting becomes a habit, and they begin to believe in their ability to achieve their long-term goals.