Common scenarios

A Bold Idea team has a mix of ages, skill levels, background, and more.

As a mentor, how would respond in these common scenarios? Most of these have actually happened in a Bold Idea session. Add your own if you see anything that is not on this list.

Teamwork

These scenarios relate to students' ability to collaborate, communicate and work well together. You may want to refer to our resources on pair programming for strategies.

1. During session 4, you notice two students aren't working well together. One student complains about being "slowed down" by their partner, while the other says "he does all the work." What are some strategies you can try?
2. You have paired students to work together on an activity for the next hour. You notice in one pair that the driver has taken full ownership of the laptop, and the navigator is sitting back with his arms folded and has become disengaged. They aren’t communicating at all, and you wonder if the navigator is just waiting his turn to code. How do you respond?
3. You’re leading a group discussion to help the students plan their creative projects. The more outgoing students have been dominating the conversation with their ideas. They are the first to respond to your questions and jump in with feedback, sometimes critical when another student has an idea. You haven’t heard from the quieter students, who have brought up some ideas one-on-one with you for the past few weeks. You worry that their ideas won’t get brought up. As a mentor, how do you respond?
4. At the first session, as students and mentors are arriving, you notice a young girl you haven’t met before sitting alone at the back table with her arms folded looking around. You want her to feel welcome and get to know her better. What do you do?
5. You hear a pair of students arguing loudly with each other. As you approach them, you can see that tensions are rising. When you ask what’s going on, each one blames the other, and one student says something disrespectful. What can you do to keep them from disrupting the rest of the class? How might you “lower the temperature” of the situation?
6. A student is constantly resistant to working with his partner and claims to be a “lone wolf”, working better by himself. How can you encourage him to work with his partner?

Skill Levels

1. A student is complaining that she feels slowed down by the other students on her team. She says she has more coding experience and is learning at a much faster rate than anyone you’re pairing her up with. You worry that she may lose interest if she doesn’t feel more challenged. How do you respond?
2. Your student wants to add a feature to their project that you don’t know how to create. What do you do?

Student-led Learning

1. A student raises his hand and calls out for help. When you check in with him, he says that he’s unsure what to do next and feels stuck. “The code isn’t doing what I want it to do,” he says. Clearly, he’s waiting for you to troubleshoot and give him a solution. Recently, you’ve noticed a few other mentors have jumped in to help this student by editing his code and moving on to the next student. But you worry that he’s not learning the concepts or even how to learn from himself. How do you respond?
2. You hear a loud yell from a student across the room. You look over in concern, but there’s just excitement. She’s pumping her fist in the air, and it’s gotten the attention of other students. When you investigate, you notice that she’s stumbled upon a solution to a challenge that everyone else had been struggling with for the entire session. How do you respond?
3. A student asks for your help with a coding challenge. You notice that it relates to the same computer science concept you taught her last week - functions. She seemed to understand it then and even used functions correctly in her code. But today, it’s like she’s forgotten everything you showed her. You’re frustrated. Why isn’t this sinking in for her? Is she making any progress at all? How do you respond?
4. A student is struggling with their project and tells you: “Nothing ever works, it keeps breaking! I don’t think I’m smart enough for this.” How do you respond?
5. Your student just can’t figure out how to make a certain feature of their code work. Their screen is shared with you and you can tell that it is a simple indenting error. How do you guide them to find the error and make it a teachable moment?
6. While working through their roadmap and project guide, you notice that one of the students is skipping steps in their projects or not actually completing projects. How can you redirect them back to past work to ensure they completed the steps and learned the skills they need to move forward?

Mentor Preparation

These scenarios relate to your ability to be an effective mentor. Read through our pro tips for being an amazing mentor .

1. It’s been a long, trying week at work. You barely have time this morning to read through and try today’s activities on the Bold Idea wiki. You know how important it is to come prepared for the sessions though, so you make the time. However, during today’s session, it becomes very clear that you’re the only mentor who has prepared. And the isn’t the first time. Several mentors have been calling you the subject matter expert and relying on you to lead the sessions and know the material. While it’s flattering, you feel some resentment. How do you respond?
2. You are a team captain on a virtual mentoring team and your team seems to never view or respond to the slack channel messages. The messages you send there are important updates that will help during the session this week. How can you address this with your mentoring team?
3. You are working with a virtual team and notice that a few of the mentors you have been paired with the past few sessions have been obviously working on other things during the session. You note that the students notice too and tend to ask fewer questions or be as engaged as you have seen them with other mentors. How do you respond to this situation?

Student Behavior

These scenarios relate to the student's behavior during the session, which may be disruptive to other student's learning. Learn more by reviewing our classroom management strategies .

1. During a break, a couple of students are horsing around by spinning around in the spinney chairs and racing them across the room. Your program site is hosted by a company and you’re worried about something getting broken.
2. It becomes obvious that your student is distracted/not very interested in working on their project today - how do you get them engaged?
3. During a breakout room session over zoom, a student keeps unmuting their mic to talk - interrupting other students and mentors. They are not asking questions or having technical issues, instead, they are just goofing off. What can you do to make sure that the student gets back on task.
4. You are working with two students in a zoom breakout room having them take turns sharing their screens. You notice that one of the students always seems to have not made any progress during the time that they are not screen sharing. At one point when the student shares their screen, you notice they have other windows open on their computer, one of which is a video game. How can you address this and make sure they are staying on task when you can't see what they are doing?

Virtual Learning Challenges

1. A student joins the zoom call and very quickly has a lag for their video/audio and states in the chat that their call keeps freezing up. The student is clearly frustrated. What can you suggest to help them with their connectivity and computer bandwidth for the session?
2. You notice a student who is normally very talkative with their camera on has their camera off today and when they talk there is a lot of background noise. How do you approach making sure they still have a good learning session?
3. You go to play the brain break game you chose for today and suddenly one of the students says that the game is blocked on their school-issued laptop - what do you do to make sure everyone can play the game?
4. You are working with a virtual coding club and a few students are resisting sharing their screens. You cannot help them with their code without them sharing their screens. How can you address this hesitancy while maintaining the zoom call as a space that students feel comfortable in?