Introduction and guidance

Facilitating learning in practice is a badged course that lasts eight weeks, with approximately three hours’ study time each week. You can work through the course at your own pace, so if you have more time one week there is no problem with pushing on to complete another week’s study. However, it is important that you do not rush to complete the weeks – you need to spend time reflecting on and considering the impact of this learning on your developing mentorship skills. The course explores the principles and best practices underpinning mentorship. The authors draw on their experience in nursing to help you develop your knowledge, understanding, and skills of mentorship practice that can be applied to many workplace environments. You’ll use plenty of real-life examples to help with this and get plenty of opportunities to practice your new understanding and skills. Part of this practice will be the weekly interactive quizzes. The quizzes in Weeks 4 and 8 will provide you with opportunities to demonstrate your new skills and earn a badge. You’ll read more on how to study the course and about badges in the later sections of this guidance.

Course learning outcomes

After completing this course you will be able to:

• Identify relevant strategies to help you to apply tools and techniques of mentorship in practice
• Review your workplace environment to identify opportunities and recognize constraints that may influence the provision of effective mentorship
• Develop a reflective approach, which can be utilized in your workplace through the identification of your learning needs and development of a personal development plan
• Reflect on how you would use this learning to be an effective mentor.