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Mentoring: a professional development framework for part-time staff at RMIT university

During the development of the Certificate III in Dental Assisting, in 2002, the program team identified that nearly two thirds of staff either delivering the program or workplace assessing were part-time/casual employees. Maintaining quality teaching practices and ensuring critical understanding of and compliance with the Australian Quality Training Framework (AQTF) were highlighted during this process. How do we, as a group, maintain continuity around critical understandings related to the delivery and assessment of programs when we might only meet once a semester as a whole group? The program team identified the use of a mentor program as being a viable means of achieving the goals of quality and consistency across the team. This paper examines the process from inception and explores the participants’ development of theoretical understandings about mentoring, the formation of individual mentor relationships, the identification of goals and analyses the key objective of providing a useful and transferable professional development model that supports part-time/casual/sessional staff at RMIT [Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology] University. The piloting of a mentor program, with the Dental Assisting group, has been initiated with funding from Reframing the Future and has been identified as crucial in developing a transferable model that will continue to build the capacity of part-time/casual staff within the faculty and more broadly. It is envisaged that the trial model will be adopted throughout the university.

During the development of the Certificate III in Dental Assisting, in 2002, the program team identified that nearly two ...  Show Full Abstract  

Authors: Robinson, Bronwyn
Conference name: International Conference on Post-Compulsory Education and Training
Date: 2003
Geographic subjects: Oceania; Australia
Resource type: Conference
Subjects: Providers of education and training; Higher education; Management;

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