While the eight weeks will seem to fly by, you will want to think about a few things during the Fellowship.
Working with your Fellow
- Set a regular time to discuss progress on the project.
- Introduce your Fellow to your colleagues. This builds a strong support system which is especially important if you are out of the office a lot or have a vacation planned.
- Arrange for classes, training and/or seminars, if appropriate.
Education Transfer
Fellows will spend 280 hours over the course of 8 weeks (approximately 35 hours per week) working on the project which you have defined. Outside of this time, they will be working on their Education Transfer Plan (ETP) and participating in other Ignited Professional Development activities (including Ignited Meetings) to support education transfer.
Each Ignited Fellow is required to develop a specific plan for transferring the Ignited experience back into his or her classroom or school. This Education Transfer Plan (ETP) could be a lesson or unit in a specific content area or one that integrates different disciplines, a classroom project, staff development, or a unit on career exploration.
The teacher is solely responsible for creating their Education Transfer Plan and you are not required to help the teacher with his/her ETP. You are welcome to help the teacher brainstorm ideas or provide resources to develop or implement the ETP, if you are so inclined.
Though you are not required to aid in its development, you will need to review and sign off on your Fellow’s ETP proposal in early July as well as review their Final ETP in August attesting to the fact that no CONFIDENTIAL or PROPRIETARY information was used in its content or development.
Check out examples of how teachers have transferred their summer projects back to the classroom!
Ignited Support Staff
Ignited will be checking in with Mentors regularly throughout the summer but please do not hesitate to contact the Ignited Fellowship Account Manager with whom you have been working with or anyone else on staff immediately if you have any questions or concerns.
Each Fellow is paired with an Ignited Coach whose role is to provide guidance and feedback on the ETP as well as general support on how to hold a successful Summer Fellowship position while in a new and different environment. Each Ignited Coach is a veteran teacher who has held several Ignited Fellowships and has extensive content knowledge and curriculum development experience.
Ignited Coach introductions will be made at the beginning of the Fellowship. Please feel free to contact them with questions or concerns. As an extension of the Ignited Staff over the summer, they are a wonderful resource for you, and your teacher.
Spreading the word!
- Arrange for a report-out to your team and/or leadership! It’s a great way to not only highlight the project your Fellow completed, but also raise the program’s visibility (and, of course your role as a Mentor) within your organization.
- Promote Fellowship via internal communications (newsletters, intranets, etc.). The Ignited team will be more than happy to help by providing program information and photos!
- Send out a press release to local news outlets about your support of education in your community. Ignited can provide additional information about the Fellowship Program’s history and statistics.
- Welcome us to your campus to film your Fellowships in action! We love to meet with Mentors and Fellows on site to capture their experiences with the program.