Panel: Mentorship Matters - Empowering Women to Reach Their Full Potential

Kayleen Holt  
Hi, everyone. I'm Caitlin Holt. And I'm here to facilitate a panel discussion with all of these wonderful women here about mentoring, the power of mentorship, how we can get connected with mentors, all of those things. Looking to see that we've got folks in here. Yeah, looks like it. All right, good to see Bella Heidi, Alison, Lauren. All right, welcome. I'm gonna start off with each of us kind of introducing ourselves. And we can tell you a little bit about where we are in our careers and the path we took to get here. And then we've got some folks here with some more formalized experience with mentoring programs. So I want them to talk about that too. And then we're just going to talk about what mentoring means to us and how, how we can find and choose and approach mentors, those sorts of things and what mentors can help with I know, one of the most frequent questions I see among people who are new to l&d is how can I find a mentor? So we'll answer that question and many more as we go. So with me, I've got Tati, Norham, Alison's, I forgot to ask you how you pronounce your last name solace,

Alison Sollars  
like dollars in the nest.

Kayleen Holt  
Thank you, Gwen, Maverick Clapper, Eric, Christine, Thomas, Wendy en el cabello. Sorry. And Devin Torres, and Limaye Conley is here helping us monitor the chat and all of that good stuff. So got a wonderful group here. So I will start by telling you that I came from teaching, I taught high school for nine years. And then from there, I transitioned into instructional design, and I've been doing that for I think it's 17 years. I haven't I haven't counted recently, but and for the last few years, I have owned a small agency and called Scissortail creative services where I do learning experience design, consulting, and I had many wonderful mentors along the way, nothing formalized. But folks who helped me get to where I am. So we'll talk more about that in a little bit. I'm going to go to Tati now to tell us a little bit about her background.

Toddi Norum  
Oh, gosh, how long do you have? So I started in basically l&d in about 2006. I was a tech writer before that. So I've had a long and winding journey, worked as an instructional designer, and basically has kind of put me in the place where I'm at right now where I manage a, essentially a most folks would call it sales enablement training group. My business calls it by a different name, but we service oh, gosh, probably 1000s across the company with that training that we run on a basically a weekly basis. So that's why we that is virtual, some of it is in person. Lots and lots of busy stuff going on. Plus we do some instructional design. So we're a busy group, kind of soup to nuts, but glad to be here.

Kayleen Holt  
We're glad to have you talking. And you've had some some experience with mentoring, like more formal mentoring programs. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Toddi Norum  
Yeah, it's interesting. So I spent a little bit of time in the startup land in this was not an l&d that I did this, but we set up a formal mentorship program with people who were new to the startup landscape. And we actually set up essentially, we match people up, we gave them the option to choose a mentor amongst the groups that were coming in to help mentor and those were people with, either, you know, a finance background, people with management background, people with startup, you know, kind of overall startup pitch background. But we found you know, that we were able to match people to their interests, whatever that was, and kind of wherever they were in their place as a startup, and then set up a cadence for them. So we actually were pretty formal and how we did the scheduling, which was actually really cool. Folks who were part of our program, and it was actually like a startup kind of a landscape. We're expected to do the mentoring sessions. And that was actually part of their requirement for being part of our group. worked out pretty well. We did this for probably about a year and a half before we actually changed the model a little bit. But you know, we've had the formal engagements for maybe 20 minutes to 30 minute call each time. And then we actually documented the the feedback on both ends. So you know, it's actually a really cool program. On a personal level, I've done a ton of what I would call informal mentoring myself and I had a mentor when I first started out in my own business landscape, she was amazing. But probably in I've done the most informal mentoring since the beginning of 2021, I started working with some teachers and folks who are transitioning to instructional design. But I completely believe in it, it's, it can be a complete game changer, trust me to just have someone to give you an idea of what the tool sets are what to expect when you go to an interview, to play mock interview with you, which I've done before, too. And, you know, just I highly recommend you find a mentor if you don't have one. And even at my age, I still look for mentors within my own company. So

Kayleen Holt  
that's awesome. Thank you, toddy. And I will also put this out there for all of the panelists. If you are open to connecting with folks who are in the session today, please put your LinkedIn link in the chat. I'm sure that there will be things that spark ideas and questions and things that folks want to follow up with you on. So Allison, tell us, okay, sorry. Allison, can you tell us you're

Toddi Norum  
gonna say anybody's willing to hit me up, Lincoln, that happens all the time. So

Kayleen Holt  
great, thank you, toddy. Now we'll go to Allison, tell us about your role currently, and the path you took to get there.

Alison Sollars  
So I did two major things. Currently, I'm a learning experience designer for a healthcare organization. And I transitioned from teaching as well, similar to your background Kaylene, where I taught first. So the other thing I do is I'm the vice president and Community Manager of teaching a path to l&d. We don't have a formal mentorship going currently, because we just got too large. So we're working on revamping group mentoring and things like that. But I have worked with mentoring in teaching and revamped and created preceptor programs. And I was a clinical educator who was involved in those programs and also trained the mentors who like went and mentored new teachers. And then I received so much mentoring informally, I would say there was no formal program I found, but informally, when I was transitioning to l&d, there were just so many people who were willing to help and so many great groups, to PLD, this group to LDC GLVC. And just so many people like Heidi Kirby is here. She helped me a lot. There's, I think such great opportunities for informal mentorship as well.

Kayleen Holt  
Love it. Awesome. Thank you, Alison. Okay, now, Gwen. Tell us a little bit about your role, how you got there.

Gwen Navarrette Klapperich  
Yeah, so I currently own my own talent development agency. And it deals a lot with disability advocacy. So in that spirit, I will be giving a visual description of myself. I'm a Filipino woman with black hair, and I'm going to regret red glasses. And I'm wearing a black dress with a red sweater today. So that's just something that I've been incorporating into a lot of my meetings and a lot of my training programs, as well as increasing accessibility and inclusivity. I actually used to be an operations and I kind of fell into training as a as an accident, I guess you can say, and it's taken me all over. I've been in healthcare. I've been in public health or government. I've been in retail, hospitality, continuing education. And so it's kind of taking me the gamut of where I've been. And along the way, I have had some mentors who have helped me kind of navigate the path of where I need to go, particularly when I was transitioning from operations into l&d. So that was really important for me to have. And I haven't done anything like in formalized in a work setting, except as a business owner, I do have mentors that helped me kind of navigate the world of running your own business. So that's kind of where I landed.

Kayleen Holt  
Awesome. I really love being a part of your mentoring circle that has been really, really helpful.

Gwen Navarrette Klapperich  
Yeah, I mean, it's actually the mentoring circle started last year at due to the women at l&d conference, because Megan Torres was one of the speakers and she was talking about mentorship. And she said, Well, why don't you make your own mentorship circle? And I said, Well, okay, I'll do that. And so I would encourage everybody who's interested in, you know, finding a mentor, even something that we are we do have quite a sizable group already, but if there are any openings, I will let you know, but I wouldn't encourage Anybody in this chat if you want to form your own circle, and meet in your own ways, I mean, it's there's nothing that says that we can't do peer to peer, especially as females in this industry, which we tend to be heavy, heavy females at the lower end of the of the tier, but then the higher up you get, you notice that the women leadership gets fewer and fewer and fewer. And that's just something that I've noticed throughout my career as well. So I would encourage everybody to form their own mentor circle if you can't find one. So

Kayleen Holt  
absolutely. I love that advice. And I love the initiative that you took just hearing that last year, and it was like, Okay, I'm gonna do this. And it is really, really helpful. Like we're all in different places in our career, or we maybe do a little bit different things, but we learned so much from each other. And that's what mentoring really is. It's just about relationships. All right, so I'm gonna move on to Christine. Now tell us a little bit about your role and how you got there.

Christine Thomas  
Thanks, Kayleen. So I've been in corporate l&d For the last 15 to 18 years, and I started my own training services company back in 2019. We are a women owned and operated company, which I absolutely love and support the others as they go through their journey into this industry. I think a lot of the contractors that we partner with now have kind of been in that same transition working from, you know, moving from training and education into, you know, l&d and instructional design. And those are really who we've found to have the greatest partnerships. And when you brought up such a good point, because in my past, most of my mentors, unfortunately, or fortunately, I guess, were actually men, because that's who, you know, that's who we rolled up to, that's just how the hierarchy was built. I did have the opportunity to have some, some good mentors in my past, where I was encouraged to speak up for myself, you know, I learned that it was okay to break those norms on the expected behavior of women. You know, I pushed back when I felt like my ideas had been overlooked. And once I had the opportunity to actually become a leader, I really fought to have more women be hired and promoted into the leadership roles, even just within my teams, whether it was projects or kind of stepping out of their comfort zones. And making sure that that was something that was forefront when I had the opportunity to have a voice at the table. So I certainly can can appreciate you know, and recognize that I think that's just a constant struggle that we have to address. And, and focus on is really helping the women that may not necessarily be in that leadership role. But if you are in that role, it's almost a responsibility. You have to put yourself out there and lend yourself to helping others find their way and have their voice their voices heard as well.

Kayleen Holt  
All right, thank you, Christine. Awesome. And then Tati has put in chat a little bit about her first l&d Work mentor. I'm gonna go on to Wendy now.

Wendy Iacobello  
Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening, depending on where you're joining us from today. I'm hoping my voice will cooperate. I also transitioned into this field from teaching and spent about 10 years in the classroom with a focus on special ed and Adult Education. And after getting my master's degree, I knew this was an area I wanted to venture into. And I thought those 10 years of classroom teaching would be super helpful in the ID world. And I have been an ID for about three years. So I'm still fairly new to the industry. And I work in higher education as an instructional designer working with online master's programs. I have been part of the mentor program with Hiring Our Heroes. For military spouses. They have a program called amplify. And I've done a lot of informal mentoring with military spouses who are also transitioning teachers or whatever trying to come over to the ID field. I did reach out to that contact before we spoke today to see if they are still doing that. And what kind of programs will be out there for people who want to be mentors to military connected individuals. So I'll put those in the chat before we finish up today.

Kayleen Holt  
All right, thank you for that Wendy. Okay, and I think the only one we have left is Devin, tell us a little bit about yourself Devon,

Devin Torres  
of course, a quick visual description. I am a light skinned biracial black woman, curly hair and purple glasses, black and white sweater. Interesting ly enough, I started in behavioral health in K 12, and then moved to adult behavioral health, and then jumped into data analysis. And I'm hoping my internet bears with me so, but jumped into data analysis in higher ed started student support programming there and then kind of combined it all into instructional design with a focus on a accessible assessment design. Currently an Instructional Designer for a product management transformation organization called to ad group. And I have a LLC called towards content creation, which actually started as a way to improve my instructional design skill. And now I'll take a couple of freelance projects here and there. As far as mentorship, I'm part of UMD CS career mentoring program. So I connect with other alumni and we talk about career paths and how we got there. I also mentor through the use drive platform for first generation college students, because that was my experience. But personally, I'm more of an informal mentor Gala. So I'm part of Glenn's peer mentoring circle, a member of black and l&d, which Mallory still founded, I know she's on here, and the TL DC. So a lot of my information as a new instructional designer, because it's only been two years has come from these types of groups where I can go in ask a question. I know I've reached out to Kaylene Bella, Rick Jacobs for just freelance opinions and things like that. So that's been my experience so far.

Kayleen Holt  
Awesome. Thank you. I love that, you know, every time we talk, I learned something new. Yeah, and I forgot to do the visual description as well. And as you as some of you know, inclusive learning is really important to me. So go ahead and do that I am a white 50 plus year old with a shoulder length blond hair sitting in my office with some bookshelves behind me. And wearing a red top and an glasses. Okay, so. So now that you kind of know where we're coming from, please feel free to leave comments questions in the chat as well as if you look to the left in the chat, there's a q&a icon. If you put your questions there, we, we will make sure that we see them, whereas they can get kind of buried in the chat. So if you have questions specifically for a panelist, be sure and put them in the q&a. And Limaye will help us keep track of all that stuff, too. So I want to start by clarifying what we mean by mentoring. And we've talked a little bit about what mentoring can look like in all its different forms. So I just want to ask the panelists, what is mentorship mean to you? And I'm gonna let someone jump in if they have a thought right away.

Wendy Iacobello  
I'll jump in. Okay. I think mentorship to me means really talking with someone who's knowledgeable in the field who can answer my questions, if I'm trying to join that field, or even interviewing, tips and, and techniques are really helpful. But also I look at as an add a mentor, as a connector, somebody who's connected in the industry who can further connect me to people as well. But I, what I think sometimes we might get a little misconstrued as that a mentor will help us get a job in the field or help us. You know, that might not always be possible. But I think a mentor can connect you to the right people so that job openings and possibilities can float across your newsfeed on LinkedIn and things like that, I think are really helpful. But also, if you do get a foot in the door through a mentor, that's great, but I don't think it should always be that x, that big expectation, just look for those connections and, and really some expertise in the field.

Alison Sollars  
Nice. Yeah.

I think that's where the difference between a mentor and a coach is really important. Like a coach is there for that specific guidance. And usually you pay a coach whereas a mentor, you shouldn't be paying in most in every case that I've experienced. So I think that's that mentorship is not about like what you get out of it in terms of an outcome that is like a job or a like, certification or anything like that. mentorship to me is about what you get out of it in terms of your skill building or your support system. I think there's mentorship is for knowledge and skills, but also for a sense of like support and understanding perspectives and experiences you don't have yet mentors can like help with that as well. And I think that's a great opportunity as well. Oh,

Kayleen Holt  
nice. I love that you brought up the distinction between a mentor and a coach, the way that I always think of that as the mentor is more of a relationship, you know, it's an ongoing relationship. And a coach, like you said, you often have to pay a coach. And they also work with you to develop a particular skill set, or reach a particular goal. Whereas mentoring, they can do that, but it's more often just an ongoing relationship where you can reach out for advice, connections, and so on. And Erica says, you know, also think about sponsors, those who can help support you with career growth. That's important, too. Anyone have anything to add about your your definition of mentoring mentorship?

Toddi Norum  
Yeah, I do. Go ahead. I like walkie talkies, I always think of it as kind of like, this is this is being a guide. You know, and I've said this before, but it's like, come with me. And let me show you some of the shortcuts that at the very least, you know how to find your way through through some of this maze. But that's kind of how I always think of it as somebody to help you find your way. So

Gwen Navarrette Klapperich  
yeah, and in addition to being the guidance party said, I completely agree with that. And what Eric has said about sponsorship, I mean, you really mentors, in my experience, have also advocated for people. So while they're not the guarantee that you will hurt, you will, you know, advance in your career studies show that if you have a mentor who advocates for you, you will advance in your career rather rapidly more than so then if you don't have one. So I think that that's a huge distinction is that mentors, especially internal mentors, who advocate for you make a world of difference?

Christine Thomas  
Yeah, and Kayleen. To add on to that, I think it's also really important, because, you know, most of these relationships are going to develop organically. And one of the things that you want to just kind of be aware of is a manager doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be a good mentor, right. So don't be afraid to look within your organization, outside of the training department, you know, find strong women that are also either in HR or the, you know, operation side, or, you know, just don't put those blinders on to, well, if we don't share the same career path, I may not be able to get any from them. Because I think that that is a misconception, you know, just having somebody to advocate for you, and give you that safe space to kind of talk. That's something that I think is a tremendous value, as well as look outside of just your department or industry, and start to develop a relationship with, you know, that strong woman that just someone you either admire or has really impacted you professionally or personally.

Kayleen Holt  
Great, great advice, Christine. And we actually had a question in the q&a related to that said, Should mentor be from the same department? And, and what Christine just says, No, not necessarily. And I think it can be important to have multiple mentors. It depends on, you know, what you want to achieve, or whatever. But um, you know, sometimes you can have mentors within your same department, you can have some with outside your department, because every one has something to teach you. And there's also a misconception that a mentor needs to be someone older, or someone who's been doing it longer. And that's not necessarily true. I've learned so much from folks who've only been in the field for a few years, or folks who are, you know, 20 years younger than I am? I don't I don't think that age and experience are the only qualifiers for a good mentor by far. What, let's see, we have another question in the chat. What would you recommend to someone who wants to move to a more meaningful role in ID that focuses on de IBDI AB initiatives and that's diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility and belonging? I'm gonna throw that question to Gwen first, because I know that that's a target of focus area for you. And you'll Yeah, okay. Now, you're muted again.

Gwen Navarrette Klapperich  
How about can you repeat the first part of the question?

Kayleen Holt  
What would you recommend to someone who wants to move to a more meaningful role in ID that focuses on the EIB initiatives?

Gwen Navarrette Klapperich  
It really depends on me or I that's a great that's a really great question. It really depends on the organization. As far as a role is concerned, but as far as what you can do to take action, there's no no need for a role, or an assignment or anything like that these are how this is how change can happen is when you actually start introducing these concepts into your instructional design, and then to your curriculum. People take notice, and I'm not gonna lie, it does take a little bit more time, but you reach a lot more people. And I think that it's a great way to kind of get started as far as starting small and and then building your way back up there. As far as like a role, you know, in instructional design and the EIB, there are some people who are going to be talking about that specifically to today. So today, and Bella also talked about a little bit earlier. You know, there's not that many instructional design roles, as far as I can tell, it's that specifically focus on that. I could be wrong. But you know, I would just encourage anybody who's interested in that space, to follow certain people on LinkedIn and learn how to incorporate accessibility, inclusive learning. Definitely take Paley's inclusive learning pledge that is phenomenal. And just follow certain people who incorporated already into their l&d programs, their learning experience programs, and you forget, you will find yourself slowly making changes that people will notice. So that's what I would say.

Kayleen Holt  
Great advice, Glen. Thank you. Devin, I'm gonna pick on you now, do you have anything to add to that? I know, dei is a focus area of yours, too.

Devin Torres  
Yeah. So as a newbie, I've, you know, everybody wonders mentioned, you know, you, Bella xiety, like, getting connected with the group of all of you, and just other people on LinkedIn have really influenced how I bring that, that into my work. And for me, it's interesting in the mentor space, because one of the things I was gonna say about mentoring is, I had struggled finding a mentor, because what I needed was someone who also shared some intersectionality with my identity. And for a long time, I couldn't find that. And I that's one of the reasons I like to incorporate it into the my idea, because it's important to me, and I realized, when I was finding mentors, they were great in certain aspects. And I love having a diverse group of mentorship. But I also needed people that I could connect with, on an eye level with my identity. So I think when when you're trying to bring this into your role, like Glenn said, it really is just making the small changes in your practice. Talking to your team, I have a great team, we are working really hard to be more inclusive. And one of the things I'm doing right now is taking Bella's quality assurance rubric, inclusive quality assurance rubric course. It's amazing, super self reflective. And so if you can find those courses, those people those conversations, conferences like this, where were there topics around it, just immerse yourself and you'll end up getting connected with the right people.

Kayleen Holt  
Absolutely, I love all of that advice, because, you know, I've learned so much from you and from from other folks too. And my main way is connecting with people, you know, on LinkedIn or used to be following them on Twitter, and not as much anymore, but this group CLDC has been amazing for for me in my personal and career growth. They're just and I've made so many connections with wonderful people. And, and like I said, before, it's all about relationships. I think if you focus on building relationships, then all the other stuff is going to follow. Um, so I want to ask, and I'll start with, with Wendy. So you can just say your name first. And then the question, you got a minute to think about it. How did you find or choose or approach your mentors? And what do you look for when connecting with a mentor?

Wendy Iacobello  
I am going to use LinkedIn as an example here and say, I don't know if I was connecting with other people in l&d before I was trying to join the field and just kind of got connected with someone in the field. But I have this connection on LinkedIn, who's pretty fluent in l&d field and and been in higher ed for a pretty long time and just kind of told her the the career struggles I was having, trying to get my foot in the door and you know, she looked at my profile and I talked about my experience what I was passionate about and she kind of took that and and when I say like mentorship is connecting, she kind of became like a connector for me. You owe your experiences higher ed, that's where you want to go. This is what you want to do. So she became a connector telling me who to follow on LinkedIn kind of connected me that way. And she also said, Hey, under this company that works with that risk high school students, you've been teaching students and adult ed to get their high school equivalency diploma for some time. So that seems like a kind of great match right there. So she connected me with this company. And that's how I got my start in the ID field. She was a connector for me, and, and I am so appreciative of that. So I don't, I honestly don't even know how I got connected with her is truly magical. But she has been a great, great person to know in the field, and anybody who comes to me and like, connect with her, connect with this person and connect with this person, because it started there. And it just kind of blossomed. And again, you know, sometimes a mentor can help you get your foot in the door, or just be that connecting force for you, to help you get that chance. Because there are a lot of people trying to get into this field who keep getting rejection after rejection. And that can get really tough and really hard. When you know that you have the skills necessary, especially transitioning teachers I'm talking to you, you have some really valuable skills. So always remember that worth and those skills that you have, and they are very transferable to the ID field. So look for someone, this was kind of my advice to look for someone where you're trying to go to so if you're a higher ed professional, or that's your goal, start connecting with higher ed IDs, because instructional design, while similar is also very different in each of the fields, corporate government, higher ed, nonprofit, k 12, you know, there's so many different ways to go into this field, but find which one of those niches is going to be yours and connect with those mentors in that special area.

Kayleen Holt  
Nice, thank you. And so many, so many learning and development fields, even beyond instructional design to Christina, I want to ask you that same question about finding, choosing approaching mentors and what you look for.

Christine Thomas  
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, and I think there was a question in chat, it's kind of like, you know, where, where do you begin? Where do you find that person, and a lot of it does take some initiative, I think, you know, just finding somebody to, you know, that has inspired you. And again, it doesn't have to be in your organization. So if I look at it from the perception of, you know, as an instructional designer, you want to make sure that you also set some expectations and be open about what you want in the relationship. So as you get to know someone, whether they're in or not in the same department, really, you know, kind of, again, understanding that someone in management may not necessarily be that mentor, but someone that has some great experience in a particular area that you're interested in, can certainly be helpful, because those are maybe not always the same person, but be open about talking about your goals. You know, what your career path is, and you know, where you want to be, you know, two to three years from now, I think, Bella talked about it earlier this morning, kind of having that vision. So being able to share that. And be frank, ask the person, you know, do they have the time and the desire to support you, because a lot of time bandwidth may or may not be you know, as women we have a hard time saying yes, which I think is also something we're going to talk about today. And learning to say no, but you know, just finding somebody that can take that on and be truly dedicated to supporting you. I will also say it's important to be open to their ideas, even if it makes you uncomfortable. One of the things that I learned, really, I guess quickly for my mentor was the only way I was going to get better was to, you know, do those things that I was exposed to that I may not necessarily have been comfortable doing on my own. But as a good mentor, they also need to be available to talk about how things went. So whether it's being a people leader, and you're not really sure that was something you wanted to do or completing a you know, learning needs analysis because you're usually doing the development and not the front end lifting. So just kind of thinking and and being open to what that mentor is going to, you know, kind of show you and push you to try is going to be very important. And then finally, I think a great mentor is going to help you surpass your own expectations. And when you reach that next level, it's so important to remember to turn around and offer a hand to that next woman in line. So, you know, get someone who's going to not only be your mentor, but teach you how you can help other women as well, because I think that's how we have to keep this going.

Kayleen Holt  
Excellent. Thank you. And there's another question very similar to that, in the q&a that if you're looking for a mentor, what's the best way to reach out to someone to ask if they can mentor you? And actually, Devin, I'm gonna go to you. Because you did this great talk. Last year, I think on impostor syndrome, and I think that's kind of what we're getting at here. How do you reach out to somebody to ask that question? And also, the the question says, as mentors, are there ways you would recommend for less experienced people to reach out and what they should say? So Devin, I'm gonna ask you first for your advice. And then if anybody else wants to chime in, let me know.

Devin Torres  
Yeah, as a less experienced people, um, I, I remember, so I'm going to actually use you Kailyn, I had a freelance project, and I needed some feedback. And I needed some advice. And I remember, like, I didn't want to bother Kaylee, and I'm new, like, she has all this experience. And I like wrote an email six times, probably. But to be honest, I kind of just had to lay out, like, think about what my goal was, I needed to know, hey, do you have time to review something? Hey, I need to set a rate. And I remember just writing it being very honest, we had kind of, you know, we had been on panels together, we had talked a little bit, but it was still very intimidating, even though Caitlin is the nicest person I've ever unofficially met, right? So I just tried to think about what exactly do I need and being respectful of saying, Do you have the time to support me in this? One of the things that I think is hard is when we have to email somebody or reach out to somebody new, it's like the fear of rejection. The fear of hearing no valid has talked about this with boundaries, some people have to set their boundaries and may not be able to help you at the time. But the ask is good. If they can't help you, then it doesn't mean they can't help you later. It doesn't mean it's not a connection formed. And it doesn't mean it's not useful. But I just tried to be very clear. In my reach out about what I'm asking, I think one of the worst things that I've had happened as a mentor is a student wanted me to help them with something, but they they worded it completely different. So I volunteered my time and then didn't have enough time to help them with what they actually needed. So I think just being clear, being honest, and then if it if you get a no, or if you get a, you know, this isn't for me or not right now, being okay with that, and understanding, hey, it's still a connection, you still did a thing you reached out to somebody, and then just keep that process moving. So

Kayleen Holt  
love it. Thank you, Devin. And I'm going to do was it? Well, sorry. losing track of things. I'm gonna go to Allison in just a minute. Before I do, I want to just tell you this quick story is I had someone reach out to me a couple of months ago, who's in a graduate program reached out on LinkedIn, it was someone who I believe had connected with me on LinkedIn. And I will always connect with people whose titles say, instructional designer or learning and development or something. In this field, I'm open to connect with just about anybody if it doesn't look like you're trying to sell me something. But But yeah, if if your first message to me is, could you be my mentor? I probably going to gonna say No, probably not. Because like Devin said, you need some very clear expectations and need to know how much time it's going to take and all of that, and, you know, all of us have all these, all these demands on our time, but this person reached out and said, you know, it was very, very clear. I am working on this project for my master's program. It had to do with Inclusive Learning, accessibility, those things that I'm really passionate about. And she said, would you have the time for me to interview you? And, and I responded back and, and I know, I've been going through some things in my personal life and was like, you know, right, right now, my daughter's in the hospital, and I don't, I don't know if I can. So let's talk about timeframes. And she's very flexible. But anyway, we ended up it. It happened probably two months after her initial request, just because my time was so constrained, but it happened. You know, I, it was important to me to make it happen. And I think that people you reach out to, if you are clear in your request, you're speaking to something that they're passionate about, you know, I think you're less likely to get to know but you do have to be clear like Devin instead. All right, so Allison gonna go to you to talk about that? You know how to reach out to mentors. And then we have one more question in the q&a I'd like to get to before we close.

Alison Sollars  
Yeah. And this was part of Ricky Fisher and I did a session at IDT X on how to build your community. And this is part of it, and I think was a big part of my learning. And still is I constantly, like reach out to people, I think, and people reach out to me. And I think you to both spoke to some of the really pertinent issues, I think it's really important not to say like, Hey, can you be my mentor? Because most people don't have the time commitment for that, like you said, and that scope is just so unclear and daunting, kind of, but can you help me with this particular thing, but I think it's also important like in that story, you highlighted they, they reached out to you because they connected your specific interest to their project, right, like to not just like reach out to the most prominent person or the first person you see, or the first person who comes up with you like Google a thing, but to, like, start to like, get a feel for people and to reach out to people who based on their interests, if they are common and shared, I think the best mentoring experiences I've had have come from those common interests and that common ground where I was really interested in something that somebody was doing. And I think also, some of the best ones I found are people who are less prominent necessarily like because they have more time, right? Like, they're not like the most outspoken every event, like they're always doing stuff, because what they have time to do is like that, like one on one mentorship. Because maybe they aren't being asked by 17 different people, you might be their one ask. And so I would say definitely connect with people and look for people who are doing the work and not necessarily talking about it as much because they're, that's just not their thing. Those quiet folks can sometimes make really good mentors.

Kayleen Holt  
Absolutely. And Allison, I'm gonna stay with you for a second because our last question in the q&a is asking about best recommendations for upskilling and rescaling for transitioning teachers, says As teachers, we can so easily see how we would positively contribute to the field, but hiring managers who aren't past teachers might not. That's so true. And I will put a plug in for you know, look at TLD C's past content, there are recordings of events for transitioning teachers. I can't remember the exact name, but look for those transitioning into l&d If you go to my blog at Scissortail ces.com. I've written recaps of those. So you can find there if you just do a search, you can look for transition teachers. But Alison, I want you to talk about the path to l&d.

Alison Sollars  
Yeah, so teaching a path to l&d at our website, which I'll put in the chat in just a minute after I'm done talking because I Don't multitask with that. Well, we have links to webinars that we've done events that we've done, but Sarah stebic, the founder has a whole series on basically like step by step pieces. And we also have a link out to a resource guide created by I want to say Karthik, Richards, which is like basically like things you can access for $0. And like learn about things. And we're big proponents of like what is out there for free and trying to curate it for people because teachers often don't have a lot of money to pay for things. So we need to have these accessible resources. Luis's TL DC content is awesome. I wrote a workbook for the last one that happened in January. But there was one last January this January that just passed and one in August. So there's three separate events where you get all those videos. And they have things for portfolio building a resume building, like whatever you're working on at that time. My biggest kind of call out though, is I would not work on portfolios and resumes until you've worked on kind of doing a basic skill assessment. And one thing I really liked for that, that I think sometimes people don't seek out is just the free one that's on the ATD Association for Talent Development website that shows you the competencies of jobs in this field. And it lets you do like a self assessment, basically. And that can give you some places to start because you might also do that and find out you thought you wanted to be an instructional designer, but you actually want to be something else in l&d and you're just lumping it all under the same umbrella. Like I really did want to be an instructional designer, but that was also the first term I heard. So it is the first term a lot of teachers here and I've met a lot of teachers who I want to be instructional designer, but then when they tell me what they want to do, it's actually something very different, but it does exist. So I would definitely encourage looking at those resources as well. So you don't limit yourself.

Kayleen Holt  
Thank you so much for that. Yeah, there's a ton of different different kinds of careers within learning and development. Donna's asking for a link to that assessment. Alison posted the link to the teaching path to l&d For those of you who are transitioning teachers I want to ask the panel if there's anything else you'd like to share we are at time, but just if there's something you've been burning to say, and you haven't been able to say it.

Okay, well, there are so many wonderful links in the chat. And if, if Lenay, or Louise, someone can send me a download of the chat, that would be amazing. I will post a recap of this event on my blog. The link is in the chat Scissortail cnn.com On Monday, and I've got recaps of a bunch of other events there too, so that you can look there to see what information you want to go look up on TLD C's website, as well. All right, thank you to the panelists. You were wonderful. I loved speaking with you. I wish we could talk longer. You've all got so much. So many wonderful things to contribute. But thank you very much. Thank you,

Christine Thomas  
everybody. Thank you. Thank you

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