Sometime last year I was asked to be a mentor at the next Wolfram Summer Camp, a 2 week camp for high school kids that includes learning about programming in the Wolfram Language and computational thinking, and then applying these to a unique project that each student creates with Stephen Wolfram. The camp normally takes place in-person, around Boston. Obviously that didn't happen this year, so we went virtual.

Difficulties of virtualization

Many schools and universities are struggling to put together an infrastructure to facilitate distance learning, which has been hard. It requires educators to think and engage differently with students, and it's not for every student. Generally, this kind of learning has been underfunded not because it's not inherently valuable but because it's already pulling in much more money than what is put into it; under capitalism, that makes it a "success", even if the user experience is poor.

When I agreed to mentor students, it was still pre-pandemic and I was expected to be there in person. When we found out that camp was virtual this year, I started thinking about how to engage students over zoom and the other tools at our disposal. The camp directors put together a nice schedule that left swaths of unstructured "project time" for the mentors, which meant 2-4 hours of sitting on zoom with students.

Breaks

I think the first issue that I encountered was: when do we take breaks?

The schedule included just a one hour midday break, and the understanding was that during lectures or project time, you can get up get food etc. Finding an optimal time for when to dip out and return was hard though:

For students, missing part of lecture time could mean they don't get to learn about a particular topic that they may need for their project.

For mentors, it incentivized being disengaged with lectures. Many times, I just didn't attend the lectures because I needed that time to mentally decompress and make a meal, or spend that time with my partner who is on a wildly different work schedule than myself.

In my project time blocks I tried to give my five students ample time to get into a state of flow without disruption: generally 45 minutes to an hour, before taking a 10-15 minute break. During breaks, I told them they can turn off their video and chill. I know other mentors had done group stretches with their kids, but with so much of their time already dictated for them, I really wanted to give them agency to choose how they took a break.

Engagement

The next issue I had to try and solve was: how do I meaningfully engage my students?

Kids aren't always forthcoming when they're struggling because of how the US education system conditions students to associate struggling with imminent failure. So I had to figure out how to be proactive in sussing out problems before they became blockers.

The system we created at camp was really good for this: after each break, I'd do a round of check-ins and have my students share their screen and tell me where they're at. This made sure they were staying on task, and asking follow-up questions helped with figuring out if they're stuck momentarily on a issue and need some help directing or debugging.

I'd also ask one of our TAs to come into my breakout room, because a fresh pair of ears always helps! The TAs usually asked their own follow-up questions that I couldn't think of, which was immensely helpful.

Outside of project time, we used asynchronous communication via Slack, which worked very well when we stratified groups and channels to handle appropriate topics: a code sharing channel for lecture activities, a code help channel for crowdsourcing bugs, a mentor-specific group, etc.

Additionally, part of the schedule was dedicated to social activities that were largely organized by the TAs (unfortunately many of which I had to miss because I needed a break); these were a success I'm told, and I believe it. I think it helped break up the monotony of the day for students and gave them some bonding experience.

Overall: an experimental success

I think while I didn't know what to expect from a virtual setting, I was able to adapt pretty well. A big takeaway from this is knowledge that having virtual directors who are proactive in figuring out the infrastructural details are crucial for educator success: teachers, professors, mentors and whoever else need to be able to focus on interacting with their students, figuring out appropriate group dynamics, etc. They don't need the overhead of figuring out the other things. I think having TAs be in charge of social organizing was also a great move, because it achieved the same thing of lowering the mentor's overhead.

Another thing I learned, or rather reaffirmed my belief in, is that you can't effectively engage students in large groups. The camp had about 60 students, and it was the same students asking questions during lectures. You need breakout rooms that have smaller groups to effectively interact with students and get them productive and feel comfortable enough to ask questions.

Overall, I spent about 10+ hours each day, everyday including Saturdays and Sundays, mentoring at camp. While some things were easier in a virtual setting, I found myself feeling "on" even in off hours, primarily because of Slack. I took steps to lower this (close work computer, only work in my office, etc.) but I think generally it is too much for me. It's certainly not sustainable for longer than a couple weeks. Now I jump back into my regular job duties, but I am going to need to request time off just to get some additional rest that I could not during the 2 week camp period.

Mentoring is a really meaningful experience, and it's something I think every person should do to pay it forward: you learn almost as much as your students, and really cement foundational knowledge. So while I don't think this flavor of mentoring is something I'd do again, I'd certainly do it again in some other fashion.