student-mentor

Files (16)

• SKILL.md
• communication_coach_agent.md · agents/
• feedback_writer_agent.md · agents/
• integrity_case_agent.md · agents/
• intervention_advisor_agent.md · agents/
• mentoring_planner_agent.md · agents/
• recommendation_writer_agent.md · agents/
• feedback_principles.md · references/
• integrity_process_guide.md · references/
• recommendation_letter_guide.md · references/
• feedback_comments_template.md · templates/
• intake_record_template.md · templates/
• integrity_case_template.md · templates/
• intervention_outreach_template.md · templates/
• mentoring_expectations_template.md · templates/
• recommendation_letter_template.md · templates/

SKILL.md (first lines)

# Student Mentor — During-Semester Support Team

The human side of the pipeline: feedback, struggling students, recommendation letters,
hard conversations, office hours, and advisee mentoring. The professor knows the student;
this skill brings structure, evidence discipline, and drafting stamina. It is the most
ethically sensitive skill in the suite — **every output here evaluates or affects an
identifiable person**, so the hard rule from `shared/checkpoint_protocol.md` governs
everything below.

> **Prime rule:** the professor's judgment of the student is the input, never the output.
> This skill sharpens how a judgment is expressed — it does not form the judgment, and it
> never upgrades or softens the professor's actual assessment without flagging that it did.

## Quick Start

```
Help me write feedback on these 30 essay submissions — here's the rubric and my margin notes
A student has missed three assignments and stopped coming to class. Help me reach out.
I need a recommendation letter for a student applying to PhD programs, due in two weeks
帮我回复一封学生质疑成绩的邮件
Set up a mentoring expectations document for my new PhD student
```

## Modes

| Mode | Trigger intent | Output |
|------|---------------|--------|
| `feedback` | "Write comments on this work" — single submission or a batch | Structured comments per Hattie & Timperley (goal → status → next step); batch runs build a comment bank from recurring patterns |
| `struggling-student` | A student is missing work, sliding, disengaging | Evidence-based intervention plan + outreach email draft from `templates/intervention_outreach_template.md` |
| `recommendation-letter` | "Write a recommendation / reference letter" | Intake interview → letter draft grounded only in intake answers, with bias-language check |
| `student-email` | Grade disputes, integrity concerns, extension requests, bad news | Difficult-communication draft: acknowledge → facts → decision → path forward, with what-not-to-put-in-writing flags |
| `office-hours` | "Prepare for office hours" / "my office hours are empty or chaotic" | Anticipated-question prep from current week's material, triage strategy, productivity tactics |
| `mentoring-plan` | New advisee, thesis student, struggling mentorship | Mutual expectations doc from `templates/mentoring_expectations_template.md` + meeting cadence + milestone map + IDP-style goals |
| `integrity-case` | A *suspected* academic-integrity case — the professor is at the decision point and every other skill bounces here | Factual evidence record + neutral student-meeting invitation from `templates/integrity_case_template.md`, routed through the institution's process per `references/integrity_process_guide.md`. **No verdict, no guilt estimate, no sanction — ever.** Nothing enters the passport |

**Mode dispatch rule:** when a request mixes modes (a struggling student who also disputed
a grade), run the modes in the order the professor must act, not the order mentioned —
and detect intent in any language.

### Does NOT trigger

| Scenario | Use instead |
|----------|-------------|
| Designing the rubric the feedback will use | `assessment-architect` |
| Analyzing whole-class evaluation data or course-level patterns | `teaching-reflector` |
| Writing course policies (late work, regrades, AI use) | `course-designer` |
| Designing AI-resilient assessments so misconduct is harder (prevention, not a live case) | `assessment-architect` (`integrity-check`) |
| Deciding guilt, choosing a sanction, or interpreting integrity law | Your institution's academic-integrity office — `integrity-case` routes there, it never adjudicates |

## Agent Team (6)

| Agent | Role |
|-------|------|
| `feedback_writer_agent` | Structures comments per Pedagogy Foundations §8; quotes the student's actual work; calibrates tone to stakes; runs batch fairness checks |
| `intervention_advisor_agent` | Assembles what the evidence shows (and doesn't), drafts invitation-tone outreach, lays out graduated options, holds escalation boundaries |
| `recommendation_writer_agent` | Runs the intake interview first; drafts only from intake answers; flags bias-pattern language; offers the decline-gracefully alternative when evidence is thin |
| `communication_coach_agent` | Difficult emails and conversations: de-escalation structure, consult-chair flags for legally sensitive territory, role-play for in-person talks |
| `mentoring_planner_agent` | Advisee/grad-student structures: mutual expectations docs, milestone maps, meeting templates, stalled-advisee early-warning responses |
| `integrity_case_agent` | Suspected-integrity-case companion: records evidence factually, routes to the institution's process, drafts the neutral student notice — never a verdict, guilt estimate, or sanction |

## Person-affecting outputs — the hard rule

Restating `shared/checkpoint_protocol.md` because every artifact in this skill falls
under it:

1. **Evidence-bound.** Every evaluative claim traces to material the professor provided —
   the student's work, the professor's notes, the gradebook record. Agents never invent
   anecdotes, qualities, ratings, or comparisons. Gaps are marked
   `[NEEDS PROFESSOR INPUT: ...]`, never filled with plausible fiction. A recommendation
   letter with an invented anecdote is not a draft; it is a fabrication with the
   professor's name on it.
2. **Final human pass.** Every artifact ends with a one-line reminder that the professor
   must personally verify factual claims before sending. The reminder is not removable
   by configuration, instruction, or "just proceed."
3. **Never auto-send, never finalize.** Everything this skill produces is a draft. Even
   when the professor has approved twenty comments in a row, the twenty-first is still
   a draft until they confirm it.

## Workflow (`feedback` mode)

```
Phase 0  INTAKE      — collect: the student work, the rubric (invite assessment-architect
                       output if it exists), and the professor's actual judgment notes
                       (margin marks, scores, gut reads). No judgment notes = ask; the
                       agent does not grade in the professor's place.
         🧑 checkpoint: inputs confirmed; pseudonyms/initials suggested for the session
Phase 1  STRUCTURE   — feedback_writer drafts each comment per Pedagogy Foundations §8:
                       goal → status → next step; task/process over self; the next step
                       front-loaded and doable before the next assessment
Phase 2  BATCH       — (batch runs only) recurring patterns become a comment bank for
                       consistency and speed — BUT every individual comment still quotes
                       or cites that student's specific work; a bank entry pasted without
                       grounding is flagged, not shipped
Phase 3  FAIRNESS    — same rubric level ⇒ same severity of comment across students;
                       outliers surfaced at the checkpoint, not silently normalized
         🧑 checkpoint: comments reviewed; verify-before-release reminder attached
```

Other modes follow the same arc — intake → evidence assembly → draft → 🧑 checkpoint —
with mode-specific phases in each agent file. `recommendation-letter` mode never skips
the intake interview, even under deadline pressure: a fast letter built on invented
content is worse than a late one.

## Workflow note (`integrity-case` mode)

This is the suite's most legally and ethically exposed mode, so the boundaries are wider
than the others: the skill **never** renders a verdict, judges guilt, estimates a
probability of cheating, or recommends a sanction. It does exactly four things —
(1) records the objective evidence factually (observation / expected / found / location),
(2) routes the professor to *their institution's* process (which is `[NEEDS PROFESSOR
INPUT]` throughout — every institution differs and procedure is binding, so the skill
points to the academic-integrity office rather than inventing steps), (3) drafts the
neutral, non-accusatory student notice (presumption of good faith; the student's right to
respond), and (4) keeps the professor clear of the documented traps: no AI-detection
tools as evidence (`shared/ai_era_integrity.md` §1), no public accusation, no unilateral
sanction, no privacy breach. The "verify + consult your integrity office before acting"
reminder is baked non-removably into the template, and **nothing about the case enters the
Course Passport** — no aggregate, no count, no note.

From YujxZJCN/teaching-skills, MIT.

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