Tips for Effective Mentoring of Teaching Scholars
Mentoring for Effective Time Management
- Help the mentee establish realistic long- and short-term goals.
- Encourage mentee to avoid over-preparing for class and to include time for scholarship.
- Advise mentee how (and when and to whom) to say no. Some mentors suggest to new faculty that they never make a commitment on the spot, but take at least a day to consider requests that involve substantial time commitments.
Mentoring for Effective Teaching
- Visit mentee’s class. Meet before class to discuss the mentee’s plans and afterwards to debrief. Invite the mentee to sit in on your class. Discuss what went well and what could have been done differently.
- Encourage mentee to carefully align course goals and assignments.
- Suggest that the mentee integrate research interests into courses.
- Show the mentee how you structure your syllabus.
- Encourage mentee to observe other good teachers or to visit an “Open Classroom.”
- Share your class materials and talk about what you do to address a variety of teaching problems.
- Encourage mentee to use a variety of pedagogies— lectures, discussions, small groups, etc.—in order to help all students learn.
- Encourage mentee to help students think “metacognitively,” i.e., to learn how to learn.
- Direct mentee to good books about teaching such as Davis, Tools for Teaching, and Bain, What the Best College Teachers Do.
- Suggest a mid-quarter evaluation of the class: the Faculty Development Program offers confidential non-evaluative classroom visits.
Mentoring for Effective Scholarship
- Encourage the mentee to prioritize activities and set realistic goals.
- Show the mentee successful and unsuccessful proposals and articles and talk about the peer-review process for publication.
- Discuss quality of publication venues.
- Discuss possible sources of funding for research.
- Encourage mentee to get involved in joint research projects with other faculty, if appropriate.
- Ensure mentee knows about research support available on campus (Internal Grants, Sponsored Projects, library staff).
- Ask to see work in progress and share your own.
- Encourage the mentee to block out time each week for scholarship.
- Direct mentee to good books about research such as Henson, Grant Writing in Higher Education, and Germano, Getting It Published.
References
Estelle Bensimon, et al., Department Chair’s Role in Developing New Faculty into Teachers and Scholars, Anker, 2000.
Robert Boice, Advice for New Faculty, Allyn and Bacon, 2000.
Richard Felder, “Helping New Faculty Get Off to a Good Start,” Proceedings of the Annual ASEE Meeting, 2000.
Robert Menges, et al. Faculty in New Jobs, Jossey-Bass, 1999.
Wasburn, Mara. “Faculty Mentoring: What the Boyer Commission Forgot,” Planning for Higher Education. 2004-05: 23-30.
