Faculty Mentor Training
To join our Research Faculty Mentor Pool, all faculty members must complete a free training offered through the University of Minnesota.
Optimizing the Practice of Mentoring 102: For Research Mentors of Undergraduate Students
Step 1: Click here to create a guest account
Step 2: Access the University of Minnesota's Training Hub
Once you create the guest account, you can add Optimizing the Practice of Mentoring 102: For Research Mentors of Undergraduate Students (course 14941)
This course is designed to help faculty members or other experienced scientists become more effective research mentors for graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and early-career faculty. Learners are introduced to different mentoring models, roles that research mentors play in their mentees’ development, strategies for building effective relationships with mentees, and application of these strategies to common mentoring scenarios.
(Online, self-paced, ~2 hour completion time).
Overview:
In this online training, you'll learn about the value of mentoring and explore strategies for supporting your mentees' intellectual, professional, and psychosocial development as researchers. You'll be introduced to different phases in the lifecycle of a mentoring relationship. And you'll be encouraged to adopt a thoughtful, proactive approach to navigating challenges that might arise in your interactions with mentees.
Course content is delivered through text, audio, mini-presentations, self-reflection, case studies, and other interactive activities. You will also have the opportunity to complete a Mentoring Action Plan and access an online mentoring toolkit.
Learning Outcomes:
After completing this training, you will be able to:
- Appreciate and communicate to mentees the importance of mentoring in their development as researchers
- Articulate the pros and cons of different mentoring models
- More effectively fulfill the many roles and responsibilities a research mentor may be expected to perform
- Engage in research mentoring in a more structured and intentional way, with attention to navigating the specific phases of the relationship
- Proactively apply specific strategies to build and maintain effective research mentoring relationships
- Identify and address challenges that might arise in a research mentoring relationship
- Routinely reflect on and adapt your research mentoring practices
Who should attend:
Individuals who serve as research mentors for graduate students, fellows, or faculty in academic settings or other research training environments. Content is targeted to research mentoring within biomedical, behavioral, and social science fields. However, many of the principles and approaches covered in this course are applicable to other disciplines and other types of mentoring relationships.