Frequently asked questions for future or current EdTA mentors

Questions and answers for EdTA mentors.

Broadly, you can expect to meet and work with your colleague(s) a handful of times (typically 3 to 5 times) over your 2 years of working together. You can expect to read and provide feedback on their writing (in a way that suits you and your mentee). Overall, we advise our mentors to spend about 15 hours, in total, with each mentee and that estimate includes meeting together and feedback.

If your mentee is seeking much more support or advice, we recommend that you advise them to attend our quarterly EdTA check-in meetings, annual writing retreats, and to reach out to the EdTA team for specific advice and guidance. You are not the sole source of support for your mentee(s) while doing the EdTA.


There are many benefits to being an EdTA mentor. Firstly, many mentors feel good about sharing their advice and providing support to others who are earlier in their learning and teaching careers. Second, it is enjoyable and good practice to network with staff within and outwith your professional areas. Third, we often learn a lot from mentoring as the expertise and experience of our mentees is new to our own including honing your own mentoring and coaching skills. And finally, being an EdTA mentor is a recognised role within the university’s leadership ecosystem. We recommend noting this role in your promotions and annual review discussions. 


Your options moving forward depend on why you haven’t been able to meet with your mentee. Have you tried reaching out to them? If they’ve been unresponsive to emails for 3 months or longer, please email the EdTA team to let us know. It is possible that they have taken a leave of absence. If you’ve met together, but not connected in a good way, it may be that there is a personality difference. Some mentoring relationships can thrive and others may not. If you can respectfully communicate with your mentee and give feedback on their work, then we would recommend sticking with it. If your mentee is unresponsive, then please reach out to the EdTA team.

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For a variety of reasons, some EdTA participants may wish to not engage in the mentoring work together. Often this is due to workload or time commitments. And, yes, this is OK. Mentees are responsible for their submissions and the outcomes of those submissions. If they wish to not be mentored, they are allowed to work independently.


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