Giving Compass' Take:

• The Christensen Institute interviews the CEO of iCouldBe, a nonprofit organization that connects mentors to classrooms in which the majority of the students are from lower socio-economic backgrounds. 

• Will online mentoring continue to grow alongside other education trends, such as personalized learning and new edtech software, etc? How will online mentoring work in tandem with new educational advancements? 

• Read about other models of online mentoring programs to compare and contrast programmatic differences. 

This week I chatted with Kate Schrauth, CEO of the nonprofit iCouldBe. iCouldBe brings online mentors from all career backgrounds into classrooms where 50-100% of students live at or below the poverty line.

Mentors and students engage on a technology platform and work one-to-one throughout the school year on structured activities focused on academic success, career exploration, and post-secondary planning.

iCouldBe’s program has shown promising outcomes of increased mentee self-efficacy (belief in one’s ability to succeed) and development of career aspirations, as well as networking, communication, writing, teamwork, relationship-building, and other critical hard and soft 21st Century skills.

iCouldBe is unlocking relationships that might otherwise be out of reach for students from low-income backgrounds. According to Kate, it’s also teaching valuable networking skills that students’ can put to work in their offline lives. Here’s more about their model in Kate’s own words.

Julia:  In our research, we’re focusing a lot on how relationships – or social capital – are critical levers for social mobility. Is iCouldBe’s model building students’ networks – both on and offline?

Kate: We do see that bear out. Within iCouldBe’s curriculum, mentees work on a number of activities that help them become aware of, and practice, networking skills. These activities have mentees practice these skills with teachers and other adults who can help them reach their educational and career goals.

Julia: What are the greatest advantages of using technology to support mentorship?

Kate: Technology-based mentoring has quite a few advantages: 1. It expands access to new and sizeable mentor pools. Mentors unable to make a year-long commitment to travel to schools each week can now participate. Second, it allows us to reach mentees in hard-to-reach communities.

Read the full article about online mentoring by Julia Freeland Fisher at Christensen Institute