Four schools came to the wannseeFORUM for the first student mentor seminar of the year. Students from the Gutenberg High School, the Hufeland School, the Immanuel Kant Gymnasium , and the Melanchthon Gymnasium learned various methods and concepts over the course of a week to become mentors for the new seventh-grade classes.
In five days, the students here will be taught how to become good mentors for the new seventh-grade classes. On Monday, they began by brainstorming ideas about the qualities, knowledge, skills, and conditions that good mentors need. After some icebreaker games, the approximately 50 participants then split into five workshops.
In terms of content, all workshops dealt with similar topics. They began with an introduction to communication, which included an examination of the four-sides model of communication. The groups also explored the topics of conflict and conflict resolution, as well as project planning.
In addition, the groups individually learned about various cooperation games and warm-ups, which they tested themselves on the one hand to strengthen group feeling, but which they can also apply in their role as mentors for their seventh classes.
Furthermore, through the plenary sessions that they designed themselves in the workshop groups, the participants learned how to moderate in front of a large group and how to lead games.
This was also demonstrated on the final day. Here, the groups themselves could decide which of their learning and developmental material they wanted to present to the larger group in a creative way. One group led a warm-up and introduced a feedback method, the "five-finger feedback" method; another group briefly summarized all the week's content in a structured presentation; and a third group staged a conflict in a game, which was then resolved in five steps.
The participants gained a wealth of experiences, knowledge, and new friendships from the seminar, which will undoubtedly be a great help to them in their future roles as student mentors. A huge thank you to everyone who made this fantastic seminar possible!
