My career path in the last few years has been in workforce development. As a Program Manager for a graduate school work-study program, I work to find meaningful applied work experiences for students.
For many of them, these positions provide them with the opportunity to be mentored by their supervisors or by another worksite colleague in the field of public health. As a result, I am always working to find the ways in which we can teach students to search for valuable mentorship experiences and engage in those opportunities.
A former mentor of mine introduced me to a what’s known as the Dreyfus Model (often used in field such as education) to demonstrate how students can gain skills through application, instruction, and practice.
The model consists of 5 stages— how a student goes from “novice” to “expert” in the acquisition of these skills:
- Entry-level (novice)
- Capable (advanced beginner)
- Competent
- Proficient
- Expert
In summary, think about how each of these stages relates to your career progression thus far. I leave you with the following questions to think about when considering how this framework relates to your professional experiences:
- Where are you in Dreyfus Model?
- What experiences did you have previously that lead you to where you are now
- Did you have a mentor at any of those stages?
- Did you serve as a mentor to someone else at those stages?
- How have you been able to implement change in your department or organization at those various stages?
- How have you used the “stage” you’re in to work effectively in a team?
- Have you been able to accept and provide different levels of feedback based on what stage of the model you’ve been in?
As career paths change and at times we may enter an entirely new industry, it is very possible that we enter the Dreyfus Model at a lower (or higher) stage than we were before.
Sources:
Miner, Kathleen. “The Mentor’s Virtue.” Mentorship Training, Emory Public Health Training Center. Emory Conference Center, Atlanta. 24 July 2014. Oral presentation.
Lester, Stan. “Novice to Expert: the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition .” Stan Lester Developments 2005 . Web. 30 June 2014. <http://www.sld.demon.co.uk/dreyfus.pdf