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Curriculum and Professional Development: Forging a Developmental Mentoring Network

Fri, April 17, 2:15 to 3:45pm, Swissotel, Floor: Lucerne Level, Lucerne I

Abstract

Objectives or Purposes
This paper illustrates how a development mentoring network of nine women in academia from various cultural backgrounds construct a culturally responsive curriculum for professional development in order to provide support (career, psychosocial) for group participants in their academic roles. Two research questions are addressed through this project: How is the mentoring capacity of developers affected by their participation in the network? What are the experiences developers perceive as having provided them with career and psychosocial support?
Theoretical framework
The framework guiding this project merges developmental networks for professional development and cross culturally-responsive curriculum. Developmental networks bridge mentoring and a social network perspective to broaden mentoring support in two forms: career (e.g., sponsorship, exposure and visibility, coaching, protection, and challenging assignments) and psychosocial (e.g., counseling, role modeling, acceptance and confirmation, and friendship) (Kram, 1985). Mindful relationship-development activities are important when mentors and mentees have different backgrounds and perspectives (Shollen, Bland, Taylor, Weber-Main, & Mulcahy, 2008). The culturally responsive curriculum used in this project takes into account the various cultural contexts and backgrounds of each participant.
Methods, Data sources/ evidence
A self-study approach was used that consists of five components: personal situated inquiry, critical collaborative inquiry, improved learning, transparent research process, and knowledge generation and presentation (Samaras, 2011). Curriculum was planned and experienced through a Learning Management System (LMS) over six months (2014-2015) and focused on providing a productive response to tensions that arose the previous year within the network and provided learning opportunities that included: 1) the use of blogs to examine and mentor career issues, 2) webinars for mentoring across cultures, 3) critical examinations of tenure and promotion documents, 4) communicative strategies and skills particular to women in academic settings, and 5) surveys on strengths and weaknesses of opportunities and outcomes related to development as mentors and academics.
Findings/ results/ conclusions
All data was generated and analyzed by developers who were able to collaboratively lead curriculum planning for professional development and respond the development provided by others in the network. Each developer collaborated in the inquiry process as critical friends who checked interpretations of content, raised questions about potential bias, and provided feedback for improving the curriculum and pedagogy. Initial findings are that: 1) The greatest learning gains occurred while developers were planning and executing curriculum plans for they were able to identify their areas of strength and weaknesses in mentoring through articulating them in collaboration while planning curriculum. 2) The cross-cultural dimension mentoring was difficult to develop given the flattening of culture through cyberspace and the organizational culture of academia that was similar across the home institutions.
Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work
The gap in the research on a developmental network provide support to one another, and offers a pilot curriculum for the larger global mentoring network in which this group of women participates. It addresses the need for women academics to establish and participate in multiple mentoring relationships with academics from various cultural backgrounds.

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