When most people think of mentoring, they think of experts sharing technical knowledge with less experienced individuals in a profession. Certainly sharing one's expertise is a large part of mentoring, but so is the communication of support, challenge, feeling and many other kinds of information. Here we focus on sharing expertise and communication of support and challenge.
Every mentor has a specific body of professional knowledge and skill to share.
In other words, the subject matter must be repackaged to fit the students' maturational, developmental or grade level, and the range of previous experiences the students are likely to have had. Experienced teachers develop a sense of how well various groups of students will understand specific subject matter when the content is presented at different levels of complexity. Similarly, teachers use a variety of teaching methods, each adopted to achieve a specific outcome. Every profession has its own content or body of knowledge in the field and the variety of methods practiced when professionals utilize their knowledge in service to others. Suggestions for Sharing Expertise on Planning Find out how you can be the most helpful in the area of planning.