Update, March 24, 1999

Kathy Guglielmi and Gayle Dzekevich, Cranston Adult Education


One mentor was approached and successfully recruited for participation. She reveiced her GED in June of 1998 and readily agreed to participate in this project. Another potential candidate was recruited but later dropped out due to other commitments. Due to time constraints, we decided to continue our project with one mentor instead of the two we had originally proposed. The project to date has proceeded as follows:

G.D. was recruited as a peer/mentor/tutor in December of 1998. The flow of events was explained to her and she agreed to begin training immediately. Training to date has consisted of approximately 6 hours of Adult Learning theory and mentoring and peer tutoring activities. Due to the fact that we are only training one individual, the training term was reduced from its originally planned 15 hours.

G.'s role was explained to the approximately 12 - 15 students that attend class in Cranston on Wednesday evening at the Arlington Elementary School. She was immediately welcomed to the group. By chance, she found herself in a position to answer many questions when the instructor was 10 minutes late during her first week of tutoring. Because this "time alone" with the students was so successful, we have decided that the instructor (Kathy Guglielmi) will arrive for class 10 miuntes late each week to allow time for G. to "be alone" with the students. This has proved to be a fruitful strategy. G. has, on her own initiative, brought in pictures from her GED graduation, as well as her diploma, to show the other students. She did this during the first 10 minutes of class. This strategy met with great success and piqued the insterest of all the students in the graduation process.

Since she started, G. has been participating in a math group that Kathy runs on Wednesday evenings to sharpen her math skills. Last week when Kathy arrived, she found G. tutoring one-on-one with a student who desperately needs help with basic math. The students expressed great pleasure at being able to have the one-on-one attention.

Although interviews have not yet been held with the students to determine their feelings of a mentor in the vlass, observation of the interaction between G.and the other students indicates that her presence and assistance are greatly valued.

Due to the fact that we will use only one mentor in the study, we will be able to keep G. for longer than ten weeks as we originally planned and provide her with the entire stipend.


back to inquiry 98-99

back to inquiry

LR/RI home