There are two types of assessments occurring in the 2019-20 program year: online unit quizzes and in-person pair assessments. This article is a detailed overview of in-person assessments and outlines their purpose, how the assessment activities fit into pair events, and promising practices for successfully collecting the data that the activities generate. If you would like to learn more about assessments in general (both in-person and online) please visit this Learning Center article.
Use these links to navigate this article:
- What are in-person assessments?
- How are the in-person assessments structured and where can I find them?
- Implementing the rubric activity at events
- Promising Practices
What are In-Person Assessments?
The in-person assessments take the form of a rubric activity that pairs complete together at two events per year across all iMentor grades. These rubric activities were designed to foster rich conversation about students’ long terms goals, the mentee/mentor relationship and students’ ability to link personal interests, post-secondary education and career options.
The two rubrics implemented during the 2019-20 program year are (1) Career Exploration: a student reflection on how to achieve their highest career aspiration and (2) Getting Support: how students leverage their mentor for support. These topics were chosen because of their ability to move pairs forward on two important programmatic goals of the program: identifying a post-secondary pathway that fits a student’s highest career aspiration and developing strong mentoring relationships.
You can read more about the value and goal of iMentor’s assessment process here.
How are the in-person assessments structured and where can I find them?
The rubric activities can be found in the Mastering the Curriculum event sections that correspond with the event of the same name (“Career Exploration Check-Up” and “Leveraging Your Mentor.”) The Event Plans for these two events contain detailed instructions of how to prepare for and lead the rubric activity, which takes place within the “pair collaboration” portion of the event. If you'd like to take a look at the rubrics in their printable version, see below:Grade | Leveraging Your Mentor Rubric | Career Exploration Rubric |
Printable Rubric | Printable Rubric | |
9th Grade | ||
10th Grade | ||
11th Grade A | ||
11th Grade B | ||
12th Grade |
Implementing the rubric activity at events
The rubrics are designed to be completed online through the iMentor Platform. Before the event, Program Managers invite mentors to complete the in-person assessments. To learn more about this process, see this learning center article for additional information on how to do this. Pairs can utilize the mentor’s phone or provided computers to complete the activity at the event. (Please note that mentors will receive an email or text when they are invited to take the assessment. See the promising practices below which suggest notifying mentors in advance of the invite.)We understand that completing the rubrics online can be challenging at certain schools due to limited access to school computers and/or WIFI connectivity issues. PMs can choose to have pairs complete paper-versions of the rubric, and then manage mentor’s to enter the data via the platform link after the event. Paper versions of the rubrics can be found below.
The data entry process takes less than five minutes and can be done with the mentee present or during the mentor huddle.
Program managers and their supervisors will receive an email with rubric data approximately 24 hours after administration.
- Notify your mentors in advance. When invited to the in-person assessment, mentors will receive an email notifying them of the invite. This email will also contain the link to the assessment, but mentors should wait to fill this out until they are with their mentee. At the event, in most cases, mentors will access the online rubric through their smart phone[using the email link or through the iMentor Platform app. Additionally, you might find it helpful to remind your mentors a few days before the event via email to bring their phone, have it charged, and/or bring a charger just in case.
- If possible, have extra laptops from the school available for pairs. If you have access to laptops through your school it may make sense to have some available. This can help you ensure that mentors with a dead phone or bad reception can still participate.
- Have mentors complete the rubric on their phone immediately during or after the activity is complete. Program managers should decide whether it makes the most sense to instruct mentors to fill out the online rubric during the activity or afterwards. Either way, ensuring the online rubric is complete immediately following the activity will prevent you from having to remind mentors to submit their data later.
- Give mentors another opportunity to submit their data in the mentor huddle. This will help catch any stragglers who have not submitted their data.
- Manage and remind mentor’s to enter their data using the Platform. If pairs use paper versions of the rubric during the event, PMs can manage mentors to enter the data online with the help of the platform. See this Learning Center article to learn more about to see what pairs have assessments in “incomplete” or “not started” status. Use the platform to send those mentors reminders.
