Both education and training, as conventionally practiced, fail to provide many individuals with the level of understanding and skills needed to become productive contributors in a world of fast-changing technology. This project explores the concept of mentoring as an alternative instructional tool that can bridge the gap between the concepts stressed in formal education and the competencies required by the workplace. We view mentoring as a dynamic social and instructional process initiated when a learner detects a problem in the context of some activity. In the first phase of the project, we will study informal mentoring in the workplace and more structured mentoring in educational settings. We will also initiate laboratory studies, using the first prototype of a computer-based support system that enables two individuals to work on the same application with provisions for a multimedia dialogue between participants. This work will provide the basis for developing a cognitive model of the mentoring process. That model and the Phase 1 research results will inform the design of the Distant Mentor, refinement of the initial prototype that will provide not only multimedia communication for networked collaboration but also support for specific mentoring activities as reviewing problem solving histories and generating explanations.
