BetterGrads Mentor-Facilitator Sample Agenda

BetterGrads mentor-mentee relationships are designed to be informative, educational and useful monthly phone or chat sessions between groups of mentors and mentees, or one-on-one conversations.

We recommend conference calls that last 30 minutes.

While email is a quick way to connect mentors and mentees, we feel that speaking directly to each other is most beneficial to answering the high school student’s questions about college.

Sample Mentor-Facilitator Call Agenda

How to Run a BetterGrads Mentoring Conference Call

1. Set Agenda for Call
• Based on BetterGrads Sample Curriculum
• Based on feedback from students, mentors, mentees, time of academic school year, scholarships, etc.)
2. Email Tasks for Conference Calls (to mentees and mentors)
Schedule Meeting
• Dial-in phone number, conference call link or other access to call
• Date, time, length of call
• Topic of the call
• Request topics from mentees
1 Week Before Meeting
• Email reminder on above items
1 Day Before Meeting
• Specific reminders (date, time, length of call, link or phone number to access call, and topics for call
3. Facilitate Call
Introduction (5 minutes)
• Record participants as they enter, and begin meeting 2-3 minutes after start time to conserve time
• Thank everyone for being on the call, and introduce yourself as facilitator of the call
• Review last meeting and recent activity (solicit feedback)
• Recruit next facilitator (identify their interest for next call
Overview of Meeting (1-2 minutes)
• Announcements, if any (e.g. recent feedback, scholarships, etc.)
• Curriculum topic(s) of the day
• Action item for next month (may be different for mentees and mentors)
Discussion (20 minutes)
• Ask participants to ID themselves before speaking
• Introduce specific meeting topics
• Discuss topics
• Invite participants to comment (throughout entire discussion)
• Hint #1: Keep track of time to reach all planned meeting topics
• Hint #2: Wrap up topics if they are taking too much meeting time
• Hint #3: Recognize conversation lulls, move onto next topic
• Suggest activities for following month
Wrap-Up (1-2 minutes)
• Re-iterate who is new facilitator (mentor) for next month’s call.
  Arrange email or phone communication with next facilitator. Arrange to share facilitator document. The next facilitator then takes ownership of the document, revises and recruits next facilitator.
• Congratulate participants on meeting accomplishments
• Re-iterate action items for next month
• Thank everyone for participating and look forward to next meeting.
• Invite follow-up comments via email before next meeting.
4. After Call (Follow-Up)
• Email group meeting notes (post your team Google Group)
• Introduce specific meeting topics
• Follow-up with new facilitator to see if any questions about how to facilitate.