Being a CoderDojo Mentor

What is a Mentor?

Being a CoderDojo Mentor is like being a guide on an adventure. It helps if you know where you’re going, but more important is a sense of curiosity and a willingness to work alongside the students as they learn. We haven’t had a chance yet to find write this guide about being a mentor at the CoderDojo Twin Cities, but there are lots of other resources available:

CoderDojo Twin Cities High-level Overview

Events are usually held once or twice a month. Events are held on the Saturdays on the University of Minnesota campus.

Students are in the classroom for about two hours, typically between 1:30pm and 3:30pm. Mentors are asked to arrive around 12:45pm to help with setup, and to stay a bit after to help with cleanup.

Classroom setup includes:

  1. Selecting the right number of tables for the expected number of students in each code group. Each table in our usual classroom holds about nine students comfortably.
  2. Retrieving the mentor and student name badges for the code group, and stuffing them in the badge holders.
  3. For students using classroom laptops, placing the laptops on the desks, connecting them to power supplies, logging them into the campus Wi-Fi, and preparing any needed software.

Students may either bring their own laptop, or use one of the classroom laptops. Classroom laptops are all Apple Macs of varying vintages. Students arrive with a variety of different kinds of computers. Most are running some version of Microsoft Windows.