Tutor/Mentor Connection

Connect knowledge, volunteers, youth and make a difference.

Daniel Bassill's Blog (85)

30 year reflection

I created this Ning forum in 2007 to support the growth of intermediaries who would help volunteer-based youth tutor/mentor programs reach more kids in high poverty areas of Chicago and other places with long-term support that helped those kids through school and into adult lives.



The site shares a strategy that I started in 1993, and named, Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC).   In 2011 I created the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC to continue the T/MC in Chicago and help it grow in other…

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Added by Daniel Bassill on January 23, 2024 at 1:14pm — No Comments

Facilitated meetings - much changed since 1990s

 In the early 1990s I became aware of something called Group Systems, which was a meeting facilitation aid, where everyone used computers to brainstorm ideas, then to organize and vote on them.  In this Feb 2020 blog article I include a quote from a 2000 article about group systems. 

Much has changed since the 1990s. Today I participated in a webinar…

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Added by Daniel Bassill on July 8, 2021 at 2:45pm — No Comments

Archive of Twitter posts using Wakelet

 I post messages daily intended to draw visitors to my blogs and use hashtags like #tutor #mentor #learning to narrow the focus.



This week I learned about Wakelet which is a platform to archive and share collections of Tweets, based on specific #hashtags.



This graphic shows five collections on my page that I created in just a few minutes. 



See this…

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Added by Daniel Bassill on February 7, 2018 at 5:41pm — No Comments

Think of idea sharing as exploding fireworks

I started this forum in 2007 when platforms like Ning were a new way to meet, connect and share ideas.  While a few people still join every year the forum has not been very active for a few years.



However, I still use it to archive work done in the past and to maintain connections for those who did join.



I created this graphic recently to show how an idea…

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Added by Daniel Bassill on September 22, 2017 at 1:36pm — No Comments

Holiday Appeal from Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC

I created the Tutor/Mentor Connection in 1993 as part of a non-profit organization that also was creating a site-based tutor/mentor program serving teens in the Cabrini-Green neighborhood of Chicago.  I created the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC in 2011 to keep the T/MC strategy going in Chicago and share it with other cities after support for the strategy was discontinued in…

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Added by Daniel Bassill on December 12, 2016 at 1:08pm — No Comments

Are you using annotation to support student, volunteer and staff learning?

Here'sblog article showing three annotation tools.

In addition, here'sarticle I wrote in Jan 2016 to introduce annotation. In the comments section of the blog I've added updates. Are any of you using these tools?

If so, post a comment and link showing how you are using…

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Added by Daniel Bassill on December 4, 2016 at 11:46am — No Comments

Follow this "Learning Path" through the ideas of the Tutor/Mentor Connection

I've hosted this Ning site since 2007 with the goal that teams from colleges, faith groups, businesses, etc. in Chicago and other cities would use the information and ideas to build strategies that make mentor-rich youth programs available in all  high poverty neighborhoods, and help each get the on-going flow of talent and operating dollars needed to constantly move from…

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Added by Daniel Bassill on April 27, 2016 at 2:14pm — No Comments

View library of illustrated essays on Scribd.com and Slideshare

Since the mid 1990s I've tried to visualize my ideas and strategies using PowerPoint and other drawing tools. I've been uploading these to slide share and other platforms for past few years. Here's one example.…

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Added by Daniel Bassill on September 29, 2015 at 5:30pm — No Comments

Use Concept Maps to Visualize Strategies and Show Networks

This is one of many concept maps I've created to visualize the commitment I and other leaders need to make to help youth in all high poverty neighborhoods of a city get the support systems they need to more successfully move through school and into careers.  While you can click through the nodes on this map, to other maps, I created this library of concept maps, to show the wide variety that…

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Added by Daniel Bassill on May 24, 2015 at 12:06pm — No Comments

Experimenting with webinars. Join me on April 21, 2015

I'm hosting a webinar focused on volunteer recruitment for tutor/mkentor programs at 2pm EST on April 21.  You can sign up…

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Added by Daniel Bassill on April 19, 2015 at 8:03pm — No Comments

Happy Holidays and Best Wishes for 2015

I hope all who visit this forum or who have joined it since 2007 will enjoy this holiday season and have peace, happiness, health and prosperity in 2015.

While there's not a lot of activity on this site, I keep adding new blog articles to the tutor/mentor blog and mapping for justice blog. The other blogs I point to on the home page are…

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Added by Daniel Bassill on December 23, 2014 at 10:53am — No Comments

Use web library to support the growth of your tutor/mentor efforts

This graphic is what you see when you visit the Tutor/Mentor Connection web library, which I've been building for more than 20 years (and on the Internet since 1998).  

The library is organized into categories, just like any other library. You can find research showing where and why volunteer based tutor/mentor programs…

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Added by Daniel Bassill on June 21, 2014 at 10:36am — No Comments

Visualization of services offered by youth organization

I'm trying to create a visualization that any youth serving organization might be willing to use to visually communicate what time of day they reach youth, what age range they serve and what types of learning and mentoring activities are offered.

This is what I've done so far.  This could be downloaded and colored in by hand, then scanned and uploaded…

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Added by Daniel Bassill on November 23, 2013 at 1:00pm — No Comments

Follow up to November 4 Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference.

On Monday I hosted another Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference in Chicago. This was the 40th in the past 20 years. I'm still going through attendance information, evaluations, etc. but it looks like about 105 attended.

One participant, Changyue An,  is a graduate student from IIT in Chicago.…

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Added by Daniel Bassill on November 6, 2013 at 3:34pm — No Comments

Community Wealth-Building, Anchor Institutions, Tutor/Mentor Programs

In every high poverty neighborhood there are one or two anchor institutions, like a hospital, university, bank, etc. that could provide leadership and strategic support to strategies that support the growth of youth mentoring programs.

If those same institutions also focus on community wealth building then they may be more likely to build the types of…

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Added by Daniel Bassill on April 27, 2013 at 11:43am — No Comments

If we agree that connecting a youth and adult mentor is a good idea....

I created this graphic last week to illustrate the progression of thinking that I've followed for the past 20 years.

I know from my own experiences and those of others, and from much reading, that connecting youth with caring adults can have a positive impact.

I also know that building and sustaining these adult-youth connections in high…

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Added by Daniel Bassill on November 24, 2012 at 11:34am — 1 Comment

Recruiting Talent

Here's a presentation you all might share to recruit talent to help your own organizations.…

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Added by Daniel Bassill on September 28, 2012 at 2:54pm — 1 Comment

Effective story telling - volunteers needed

I just read this article on the Stanford Social Innovation review and I'm guilty of leading with problem statements and scaring off people who might want to help.

However, teaching old dogs new tricks is something that's hard to do, as is breaking long-term habits. 

Thus, my solution is to recruit volunteers who might help shape the messages in ways that don't…

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Added by Daniel Bassill on September 15, 2012 at 12:14pm — No Comments

Free knowledge, learning opportunities to anyone with internet access

I've been reading Curt Bonk's book titled the World is Open and have put in dozens of sticky notes on pages with links to on-line learning resources that he mentions.  I intended to go back and find these, one at a time, and add them to my own library on the Tutor/Mentor Connection site.

However, Curt's already done much of the work of building a list of resources. Visit this page and …

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Added by Daniel Bassill on July 7, 2012 at 9:01am — No Comments

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