ABSTRACT
The mentor should use a range of effective interpersonal skills to respond to the needs of the trainee. There is an increasing body of evidence from across the world about paired placements and collaborations with mentors that shows, overwhelmingly, the benefits for trainees, and consequently for pupils. This chapter explains frameworks that help mentors in setting up collaborative events, which have been researched in recent years by a number of training partnerships in the UK. One such approach is based on the thinking of Maslow, whose theories try to take into account many of the affective elements that influence a learner. He developed a hierarchy of the needs that impinge on a learner's motivation. Trainees working together can often learn as effectively as those working alongside mentors. The Canterbury team concluded that, to further enhance progress, conscious and explicit efforts had to be made to teach trainees and mentors how to work collaboratively in a paired placement scheme.
