Abstract
<span style="font-size: 10pt; layout-grid-mode: line; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;" lang="EN-US">Universidade J&uacute;nior is a very large educational program for the promotion of knowledge among pre-university children and teenagers launched in 2005 by U.Porto. This extremely popular initiative is currently attracting around 5000 students per year for a variety of learning activities and small research projects offered by the 14 Faculties of U.Porto during July and September. Besides providing a foretaste of university life and vocational orientation, they also give the youngsters a strong incentive to continue their studies into higher education and a knowledge-based career. A key element to the success of this process is the mentoring activity that is developed at two levels: between faculty and the junior tutors and between these and the young students.</span>
Highlights
This paper describes teaching, learning and mentoring activities developed in the context of Junior University (Universidade Júnior - U.Jr.) [1], an initiative of U.Porto aimed at youngsters in the 11 to 17 age group
Exercises including different techniques are used for demonstration and training purposes
Summary
This paper describes teaching, learning and mentoring activities developed in the context of Junior University (Universidade Júnior - U.Jr.) [1], an initiative of U.Porto aimed at youngsters in the 11 to 17 age group. According to the EU 2020 strategy, by that year 40% of Europeans between the ages of 30 to 34 are expected to have higher education degrees. The achievement of this goal demands that more young people should enter higher education. Mentoring in the context of Engineering Education is being explored in various formats, namely in the so called "Project- Mentoring" [4] at Leuphana University of Lüneburg, a competence-oriented teaching and learning approach based on the constructivist learning theories by supporting collaborative and active learning. The time scale is the major difference in the case of U.Jr. given its summer school character, but the perceived benefits for both tutors and young students are of similar nature, namely the development of leadership and other soft skills for the former and an eye-opener and a strong incentive for the latter to pursue higher education
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