College Mentoring Handbook: The Way of the Self-Directed Learner

James L. Gray, EdD

Feb 2016 · AuthorHouse

About this ebook

The Mentoring Handbook invites students to experience the power of learning by adopting the self-directed learning approach to college. Eleven mentoring lessons are presented that reveal winning strategies and conceptual insights on how a student can liberate him or her from the role of passive learner and take personal responsibility for active learning instead of being fed by faculty. The author demystifies the degree and the GPA as the end-game of college, illustrating to students how not to let college get in the way of a good education, which ultimately is to enhance employability potential and build work readiness skill sets. Most important, the mentoring lessons will help students reframe the purpose of college and use the learning experience to transform themselves as competitive job seekers in a murky job market and an uncertain economic landscape. As they rethink the outdated traditional instructor-driven education college model that they have fallen victim to, they become empowered to take control of their professional growth and career aspirations.

About the author

Dr. Gray has a reputation among his peers as being an engaging public speaker and creator of interactive and thought-provoking student mentoring workshops. In an age of an ever-changing global landscape, he has become a passionate educational advocate for the empowerment of America’s youth, especially young minority men and women. Throughout his professional career, he has devoted time and energy to corporate mentoring and coaching to assist professional staff in improving job performance and career advancement. For the past decade, he has redirected his focus and energy on mentoring and coaching college students. Motivated by an undying passion to inspire a new generation of first-time college students, his aim to ignite a conversation on the importance of incorporating mentoring and coaching as a holistic approach to academic performance and career development. Dr. Gray earned a master’s degree in social work from West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia; a master’s degree in business administration from the University of the District of Columbia in Washington, DC; and a doctorate in urban leadership education from Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland.