Nurturing Excellence in Student Teachers (NEST)

This digital badge is available to pre-service teachers in Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT) teacher education
programmes. The badge is allocated to pre-service teachers who opt into, and successfully complete, a student-led peer
mentoring and support programme for pre-service teachers, where award year students mentor third-year students before
the commencement of school placement. This optional programme is not embedded into the degree programme: it
compliments degree studies and provides an additional form of recognition, over and above teacher education degree
programme requirements. It can be added as professional development evidence - for employers - on the pre-service
teachers’ Teaching and Learning e-Portfolios and included in their Curriculum Vitaes.

Participants demonstrate professional leadership and mentoring skills (planning, modelling, instructing, facilitating,
active/empathetic listening, demonstrating & evaluating) as well as qualities and values, associated with mentoring, such as
patience, compassion, accountability and integrity. Participants contractually agree to the co-mentoring programme
learning outcomes and to the respective roles and responsibilities on the programme.

Peer mentoring activities may include but are not confined to:

•Dialoguing and mutual communication and support on settling into the new school surroundings.
•Conversations and demonstrations on the methods of creating an effective SP folder, including the platform and
hyperlinking of files.
•Conversations and demonstrations on the methods of creating effective teaching resources, e.g. animated PowerPoints
involving SolidWorks and AutoCAD programmes, educational applications, rubrics, exit cards, word walls, etc.
•Sharing model samples.
•Peer-assisted training on school platforms (e.g. Teams, Zoom, Webex and Google Classroom)
•Peer reviews of SP folders, including aesthetics/design of the folder presentation, planning grids, lesson plans, resources
and reflections.
•Peer assessment of the Initial SP files, using the official GMIT assessment rubric.
•Co- experimentation and co- problem-solving the use of new educational technologies and applications.

Earner: Sean Gallagher

Issued by: Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology
Issued on: 27.05.2021
Expires on: -

Criteria: Open criteria

To earn this badge, the recipient has completed to following tasks:

•Development of a student-led co-mentoring weekly planning grid for a minimum of four weeks.
•Successful completion of a minimum of four mentoring activities over the course of the programme.
•Construction of a weekly log of co-mentoring meetings and activities.
•Completion of one critical reflection on key learnings from the mentoring programme.

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•Showcase of co-mentoring evidence on the Teaching and Learning e-Portfolio.
•Weekly engagement in the NEST activities as either a leader or a facilitator.
•Acting as a lead facilitator for one NEST activity (in teams): designing and delivering the input and learning activity to a
high standard.

Issuer Information
Issuer Description: Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology is a Higher Education institute based in the west of Ireland.
Issuer Website: https://www.gmit.ie/about/digital-badges
Issuer Contact: badges@gmit.ie

https://openbadgepassport.com/app/badge/info/367467