PREMIUM Coaches and Mentors

Consult the Competence Coach and Project Mentor handbooks, download the necessary documents for coaching, or contact Central Management.

Thank you for joining our PREMIUM community.

PREMIUM is an honours programme for excellent master’s students. This extracurricular programme provides an extra challenge for talented students and prepares them for the labour market, aiming to effectively bridge the gap between study and career.

PREMIUM students work on a project for an external client under the guidance of a project mentor and participate in master classes and workshops. Another important element of the programme is the competence coaching. All students work and reflect on the development of their competences with their competence coach.

On this website you will find the handbook for Project Mentors and Competence coaches, which provides you with useful information about the programme. You will also find more information about the PREMIUM training programme for coaches and mentors.

We wish you an inspiring PREMIUM experience!

The role of the Mentor & Coach

The role of the PREMIUM Project Mentor

What do we expect from Mentors?

Throughout PREMIUM, the project mentor will support the team in planning, developing, communicating with the client, and completing the assignment. The project mentor is responsible for the content part of the project and the process, whilst the competence coach is responsible for the team dynamics and the (inter)personal skills of the students.

  1. the main concern of the PREMIUM project mentor should be the student’s learning experience;
  2. steering and guiding the group to the agreed upon assignment;
  3. helping the team in drawing up an action plan, setting a timeline, milestones and defining the final product;
  4. functions as an intermediate between client and students when the scope of the project requires re-definition and can provide support to the students in negotiation processes with the client;
  5. assists the students in their communication with the client (expectation management) and, at the end of the project, asks the client for feedback on the team performance;
  6. initiates and chairs the team’s kick-off meeting and midterm reflective practitioner meeting, as well as the closing reflective meeting.

At the end of PREMIUM the project mentor will grade and assess individual and team performance based on at least the following and more criteria:

  • Participation (effort, time and energy put into project execution and teamwork);
  • Courage to experiment with new ideas and behaviour;
  • Reflective determination to improve the team process;
  • Professional behaviour.

The role of the PREMIUM Competence Coach

What do we expect from Coaches?

The PREMIUM competence coach is responsible for the coaching of students in the development of a specific competency that was chosen by the student him/herself (e.g. leadership, communication, stress management, time management, assertiveness, or networking).  The coach is also going to work with the students on the team dynamics of the whole group. Whilst the project mentor is responsible for the content part of the project and the process, the competence coach is responsible for the team dynamics and the (inter)personal skills of the students.

Your responsibility as a competence coach lies in coaching your students during the PREMIUM project, to help identify the competency they like to work on, to invite them to reflect on their current way of going about this competency, and to invite and encourage them to experiment with new behaviour, attributes, skills, and knowledge. This process between student and coach is strictly confidential and you are kindly asked to make this explicit in the first meeting. Finally, you are expected to give an overall evaluation of your findings with regard to the students’ process to the student in the last meeting.

At the end of PREMIUM, the competence coach will grade and assess the individual performance of each student in the coaching process based on at least the following and more criteria:

  • participation (effort, time and energy put into coaching);
  • courage to experiment with new ideas and behaviour;
  • reflective determination to grow and expand self-knowledge;
  • the quality of student’s PDP;
  • professional behaviour.

Handbook & Documents

PREMIUM Handbook

Project Mentors & Competence Coaches

Download the handbook here

Download Documents

Find everything you need to fulfil your role as PREMIUM Mentor or Coach.

Documents

Training Programme Coaches & Mentors

Every year, PREMIUM organizes a special training programme for Coaches and Mentors, aimed at providing everyone with the knowledge and tools required for PREMIUM.

We would like to point out that we highly appreciate everyone’s attendance at these events since it assures a high level of Project Mentorship and Compentence Coaching during the PREMIUM programme. Next to that, these events also bring Coaches and Mentors together to share thoughts and experiences.

We will award an official PREMIUM certificate to all Coaches and Mentors that have attended all parts of the programme (in case they have not received this certificate previously).

These trainings may count towards your CPD, depending on your personal development goals, in discussion with your supervisor or manager.

We believe that the mandatory components are necessary for all new Coaches and Mentors to create an effective and enjoyable PREMIUM experience for Coaches, Mentors and students. For experienced Coaches and Mentors there are no mandatory components to the training programme, but of course we hope to welcome you all at the sessions, since it will provide you with new insights and skills, especially now that working with remotely functioning teams is a new trend with new possibilities and challenges.

*In order to be eligible for the PREMIUM Coach/Mentor certificate, new Coaches and Mentors must have attended at least the Introductory Training Day, and additionally either 2 advanced trainings, and 2 Intervision sessions, or 3 advanced training and 1 Intervision session.

Mandatory introductory training day

All new Coaches and Mentors are requested to attend this day of training during which they will participate in a workshop on introduction to coaching techniques (for new Coaches) as well as a workshop on team dynamics (for new Coaches and new Mentors). New Mentors will receive a training on how to guide students during Project Based Working.

During these workshops, new Coaches and Mentors will be handed the tools they need to perform their tasks within PREMIUM.
Experienced Coaches and Mentors that like to refresh their knowledge are also welcome to attend. For Mentors for example, the Double Diamond method will be incorporated for the very first time.

When: Thursday, January 11th, 10:00-17:00hrs.

Where: EDLAB, Tapijn building X

Itinerary:
10:00-13:00 hrs: Introduction to coaching (Coaches)
10:00-13:00 hrs: Project Based Working & Double Diamond (Mentors)
13:00-14:00 hrs: Lunchbreak (lunch will be provided)
14:00-17:00 hrs: Team dynamics (for Coaches and Mentors)

Please sign up for these sessions for NEW mentors and coaches.

Project Mentors: https://edlab.nl/slottr/premium-training-new-mentors/

Competence Coaches: https://edlab.nl/slottr/premium-training-new-competence-coaches/

Advanced Training for Coaches and Mentors "Teaming, hit the floor running" (CANCELED)

We kindly invite all PREMIUM Coaches and Mentors to this training where the possibility will be offered to broaden and deepen your knowledge of Coaching or Mentoring.

For this session, we have requested Eric Koenen from Doorwerth Groep to give a workshop on a current topic, relevant at this stage of your PREMIUM experience.

Topic: “Teaming, hit the floor running”

Teaming is a way of working together, described by Harvard professor Amy Edmondson (here is the link to her TED talk). She described teaming as the ability to work together quickly, flexibly and decisively, under the pressure of constant change, even with people you don’t know well yet, to achieve a common goal as best as possible in the process. Edmondson was particularly interested in teams that worked together successfully without much time spent on team building. So no extensive sessions to get to know each other better. Also no clear structure and certainly no time to talk in detail about the culture within the team. And then work well together, how do you do that?

An example  is the disaster involving a group of miners who got stuck in a deep mine. It seemed an impossible task to save these men. Nevertheless, a team of very different specialists who did not know each other at all finally succeeded. What was the secret?

During this session, we will discuss how you, as team coach/mentor, can immediately ensure that your team works energetically while they barely know each other and you? We will also discuss the upper current and undercurrent in teams and how can you know the undercurrent so early in the process and make it work for you.

We will also dive into the topic of collective intelligence and why it is so important especially in this setting where interdisciplinary teams of students solve complex problems. Collective intelligence is the process by which a large group of individuals gather and share their knowledge, data and skills for the purpose of solving societal issues. You could also say that collective intelligence is a kind of wisdom and knowledge that grows out of a group. The concept of collective intelligence states that when people work together, they form a type of intelligence that simply cannot exist on the individual level. During this session we will explore options on how to boost the collective intelligence of your group of students.

The follow-up of this session will be in April.

When: Tuesday 23.01.2024, 14:00-17:00 hrs

Where: EDLAB, Tapijn building X

Register here

Advanced Training for Coaches and Mentors "The psychology of trauma in the body"

We kindly invite all PREMIUM Coaches and Mentors to this training where the possibility will be offered to broaden and deepen your knowledge of Coaching or Mentoring.

For this session, we have requested Adina Petre from MyInsights to give a workshop on a current topic, relevant at this stage of your PREMIUM experience.

Topic: “The psychology of trauma in the body”

There has been so much talk about trauma lately that by now we’re all a little bit adverse to the overuse of the word. To shed some light on what actually is Trauma and what isn’t, and to better understand the mind-body connection which might play a role in your lives and in those of your students, we are organizing this workshop.
Facilitated by MSc Clinical Psychologist Adina Petre, who has been running her Trauma informed practice for over a decade, this workshop aims to debunk the most commonly vehiculated myths about trauma and give you some clarity in regards to the mind-body approach in trauma work and how to use it in relation to your students.

When: Thursday 08.02.2024, 14:00-16:00 hrs

Where: Trainings will take place at EDLAB, Tapijn building X

Register here

Advanced Training for Coaches "Embodied approach to coaching"

We kindly invite all PREMIUM Coaches to this training where the possibility will be offered to broaden and deepen your knowledge of Coaching.

For this session, we have requested Renee Speijcken from UMIO and Cecile Nijland from FHML, to give a workshop on a current topic, relevant at this stage of your PREMIUM experience.

Topic: “How an ‘embodied approach to coaching’ can be beneficial for your students and yourself.”

In this 4-hour workshop we would like to give you a direct and embodied experience of the many benefits a more embodied approach to coaching can offer you in supporting your students.

Embodiment (‘belichaming’ in Dutch) refers to the fact that we experience and connect to life, ourselves, others and the world around us, through our whole body, not just via our mind (thinking process). The body is our unique instrument through which we experience our (level of) aliveness and wholeness. As such, much of who we have become, – our habits, tendencies, blind spots, reactivity, areas of tension – , live in our body tissues, posture, emotions and thought patterns.

This workshop aims to bring more awareness and skill to your own embodiment as a coach in order to use this to support your students in the coaching process. Experiencing how to become more familiar with your own (level of ) embodiment, how to strengthen this by exploring what you need to connect and reconnect to your-self when life gets challenging, will give you a new invaluable toolset to support your students. In this way the workshop offers you an additional, and for some of you, new approach and set of tools that can potentially enrich your coaching practice as well as your team dynamics meeting.

Learning goals:

  • Increased awareness of your own (level of) embodiment and why this is important in the coaching process;
  • how using your whole body as an instrument to connect and stay in connection with your client – and in doing so become informed of their (level of) embodiment and how you relate to them;
  • how to listen and stay connected to yourself while connecting and relating to others;
  • Practical examples from coaching situations in how to use these newly acquired tools.

The workshop uses direct experiencing as its main tool.

When: Wednesday 21.02.2024, 09:00-13:00 hrs.

Where: Trainings will take place at EDLAB, Tapijn building X

Register here

Non-Mandatory “PREMIUM Intervision Session”

We kindly invite all PREMIUM Coaches and Mentors to these sessions, which are aimed to exchange experiences, ask questions, discuss team issues and network.

When:
Thursday February 29th
Wednesday April 3rd
Thursday May 2nd (original date was May 14, but date was changed by trainer)

Itinerary:

15:00-15:15 hrs: Welcome
15:15-17:30 hrs: Intervision techniques and session

We will send you an Outlook invitation in due time.

Advanced Training for Coaches and Mentors "Improvisation theatre techniques for feedback"

We kindly invite all PREMIUM Coaches and Mentors to this training where the possibility will be offered to broaden and deepen your knowledge of Coaching or Mentoring.

For this session, we have requested Annika Nübold, Eliza de Sousa Fernandes Perna and Alicia Walkowiak, from FPN, to give a workshop on a current topic, relevant at this stage of your PREMIUM experience.

Topic: “Improvisation theatre techniques for feedback

The curtain is just about to go up. The actors are calming their nerves as  the excitement in the audience builds. Just another “normal” day at the theatre. Except there’s no script: anything goes. This is improvisational theatre, and spontaneity is the name of the game.
Improv actors need to be constantly on their toes, ready to pivot and respond to ever-evolving situations. Working together, they juggle ideas, developing the scene as they go along. If one idea falls flat, they move on to a new one without any break in the flow of action.

The skills used by improv actors seem to align closely with what’s expected of a lot of teams in today’s world. In both cases, it’s about navigating uncertainty, constantly adapting to new challenges, trusting in one’s teammates, and working together spontaneously.

Another key aspect of improv theatre is that it sheds light on things that would otherwise remain hidden. Improvisation makes intangible things real. That’s why it can also be used as a tool for reflection. Improvised roleplays bring into the open things that are normally difficult to explore, such as communication, conflict, feelings and interpersonal relationships.

During this session, we will take you through certain techniques used in improv theatre and show you how you can use them as tools for feedback with your students and/or student team.

When: Tuesday 26.03.2024, 13:30-16:30 hrs.

Where: EDLAB, Tapijn building X

Register here

Advanced Training for Coaches and Mentors "The magic and threats of the undercurrent"

We kindly invite all PREMIUM Coaches and Mentors to this training where the possibility will be offered to broaden and deepen your knowledge of Coaching or Mentoring.

For this session, we have requested Eric Koenen from Doorwerth Groep to give a workshop on a current topic, relevant at this stage of your PREMIUM experience.

Topic: “The magic and threats of the undercurrent”

It is common knowledge that there is a lot more going on in teams than what is on the formal agenda. Team dynamics are invisible patterns of behavior that strongly influence the visible performance of a team. If you want to be an effective team leader, you need to get to grips with this otherwise elusive phenomenon.

Since the undercurrent is a largely invisible phenomenon we simply have to assume its existence. The undercurrent cannot be grasped or measured, yet it can a have a strong impact on team behavior and on the emotions of team members. Anyone who has ever been pushed out of a group knows how real that feels. And the glass ceiling in organizations has never been photographed, yet it has stopped many from advancing their careers. Once you try to discuss it, you may quickly drown in a swamp of individual abstractions, emotions and attitudes. So how can you talk about it with your student team, how can you get a grip on this undercurrent as a Supervisor, coach or mentor and have it work for you instead of against you?

When: Wednesday 17.04.2024, 10:00-13:00 hrs.

Where: EDLAB, Tapijn building X

Register here

Advanced Training for Coaches and Mentors "Dealing with resistance"

We kindly invite all PREMIUM Coaches and Mentors to this training where the possibility will be offered to broaden and deepen your knowledge of Coaching or Mentoring.

For this session, we have requested Ellen Schiffeleers from Barcavela to give a workshop on a current topic, relevant at this stage of your PREMIUM experience.

Topic: “Dealing with resistance”

Resistance of participants towards learning/developing/opening up may trigger the group, its individual team members Mentor or Coach.

It is particularly useful to recognize resistance and to have a repertoire of responses available, keeping a positive effect on the final results and on the group dynamics in mind, and the personal growth of the students. We will explore where resistance comes from, how to recognize it and how to response to it.

When: Monday 22.04.2024, 13:00-16:00 hrs

Where: Trainings will take place at EDLAB, Tapijn building X

Register here

Questions regarding coaching or mentoring?

As a competence coach or project mentor, you might sometimes be in need of some collegial advice. Are you not sure how to handle a certain issue in your PREMIUM team, suggestions on how to get that student to open up or tips on how to organize your team dynamics meeting.

For those questions, our certified trainers and coaches are more than willing to be your soundingboard and sparring partner. Feel free to contact them.

eric_koenen

Eric Koenen

Trainer Doorwerthgroep

1634129604560

Marcel Stolk

Trainer and Owner Mast Creativiteit

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Adina Petre

Coach, trainer and owner MyInsights

renee

Renée Speijcken

Educator, Coach, Senior Project manager (UMIO)

1666014925847

Ellen Schiffeleers

Trainer and Owner Barcavela

Why being a PREMIUM coach or mentor is awesome!

Besides of the compensation of hours and the appreciation of the students, being a PREMIUM competence coach or project mentor is awesome! Don’t just take our word for it. See what previous coaches and mentors thought of participating in PREMIUM.

Lijsbeth Bruens – Competence Coach

“I enjoyed most that the students dared to open up with me and trusted my coaching”

Dominique Waterval – Competence Coach

“The personal conversation which students appreciated and were used by them as a source of reflection”

Robert Ciuchita – Project Mentor

“I would be happy to take part in PREMIUM again as a mentor.”

Questions for PREMIUM Central Management?

Please feel free to contact PREMIUM

Contact PREMIUM

Are you interested in being a PREMIUM Competence coach or Project mentor?

For the coaches: please inform the central programme management for PREMIUM by using the contact button, if you are interested in becoming a coach (in the period January-June). Please also inform us about the number of students you are willing to coach.

For the mentors: please inform your faculty coordinator if you are interested in mentoring a PREMIUM project. And, if you would have a great idea for a PREMIUM project, this is of course also possible. Please contact your faculty coordinator to discuss your ideas.