Harvard Students: Learn to Teach & Mentor

Each semester, 25-35 Harvard College undergraduates serve as Mentors at the Harvard Ed Portal located at 224 Western Avenue in Allston. Mentors fulfill important community outreach roles for Harvard by working with Allston-Brighton children, teens, and adults from a variety of backgrounds.

Mentors encourage youth to explore science, writing, public speaking, math, technology, and the arts; work with high school students on college and career preparation; and support adults as they learn workplace skills. Mentors intentionally develop their own skills as educators, embodying a commitment to lifelong learning.

Under the direction of Assistant Director for Socially Engaged Learning, Leah Dodell, undergraduate Mentors create curricula, instruct, support each other, and submit reflective writing and media about their experiences. Most accepted undergraduates find the program to be personally rewarding and stay for many semesters, forming a meaningful community around teaching and learning.

The Harvard Ed Portal is an innovative collaborative partnership involving Harvard University, the City of Boston, the Harvard Allston Task Force, and the Allston-Brighton community. Located at the crossroads of the North Allston-Brighton neighborhood and Harvard’s campus, the Ed Portal serves as a physical place for members of the Allston- Brighton and Harvard communities to come together to share ideas and learn from one another. The Ed Portal fosters innovative ways of learning and provides programming in creative and performing arts; science and technology; wellness and recreation; and economic, workforce, and professional development for learners of all ages.

Visit our contact page for directions.

We welcome applications from undergraduates across all concentrations. Becoming a successful mentor is a multi-semester endeavor; we prioritize applicants who are interested in staying with the program for more than a year. Undergraduates interested in completing the Education Secondary find HEP work to be complementary to their studies.

In Spring 2023, our Mentors co-led afterschool design-engineering activities at an affordable housing complex, co-taught 1st grade and 2nd grade literacy, as well as 4th grade afterschool science classes for Boston Public School’s aftercare program.

They also designed and led original clubs in graphic design for middle school students, graphic novel creation for 3rd-5th graders, science of cooking for middle school students, plus provided language translation support for English Language Learner (ELL) teens at Brighton High School, and supported college and career events for local high school students.

In addition, a number of mentors provided hands-on, creative interdisciplinary one-on-one mentoring for 1st-8th graders in the community.

Mentors receive training each semester in different aspects of pedagogy and educational delivery. Topics include but are not limited to: growth mindset, active and inclusive teaching, the learning cycle, backward design from learning objectives, group management, and content area activities. New mentors complete or attend an online Youth Protection module and several morning orientation meetings.

Every semester, all mentors participate in:

• Preparatory afternoon meetings before the 10-week mentoring program begins;
• Weekly individual preparation of learning goals, lesson plans, and sometimes independent critiques of each other's plans;
• Occasional readings or pre-work for group meetings;
• Regular meetings to share ideas, discuss issues around teaching and learning, and complete reflective writing about teaching;
• One Saturday retreat that includes workshops by guest educators, educational resources, and strategies in the arts, science, writing, math, and more.

Undergraduate mentors are paid with a starting rate of $17.50/hour for time that includes training, meetings, lesson preparation and delivery, and reflection. On average, undergraduates devote between 5–8 hours per week to the program for a period of 9-10 weeks per semester. Mentors who return are given a pay raise each year. Travel off-site is compensated as appropriate.

All interested applicants must be legal to work in the United States. Both work-study and non work-study students are eligible.

Interviews take place within the first 10 days of class each semester. We encourage interested students to apply as early as possible and we accept applicants from all concentrations. Exactly 2 weeks after classes begin, we ask for a firm schedule commitment with program onboarding taking place the following week. Final placement on the mentoring program schedule requires a match between an accepted candidate's availability and program need.

We look for demonstrated creativity, an ability to connect with and communicate to students of all ages, an eagerness to break down barriers between academic subjects, art, and technology, an understanding of how to represent the University in the community, and the desire to be an active member of our undergraduate group. Please direct questions about the program to Leah Dodell, of Socially Engaged Learning (leah_dodell@harvard.edu) or Mariah Smith-Sharpe, Mentoring Coordinator (mariah_smith-sharpe@harvard.edu).