Mentor Training for Postdocs

Postdocs who have completed the Mentor Training

Session topics and their objectives:-

Session 1: Effective Communication

1. Provide constructive feedback
2. Use multiple strategies for improving communication (in person, at a distance, across multiple mentees, and within appropriate personal boundaries)
3. Engage in active listening
4. Communicate effectively across diverse dimensions, including varied backgrounds, disciplines, ethnicities, and positions of power
5. Identify different communication styles

Session 2: Aligning Expectations

Mentors will have the knowledge and skills to

1. Listen to and consider the expectations of their mentee in the mentoring relationship
2. Consider how personal and professional differences may impact expectations
3. Clearly communicate expectations for the mentoring relationship
4. Align mentee and mentor expectations

Session 3: Assessing Understanding

1. Assess their mentee’s understanding of core concepts and processes and ability to develop and conduct a research project, analyze data, and present results
2. Identify reasons for a lack of understanding, including expert-novice differences
3. Use multiple strategies to enhance mentee understanding across diverse disciplinary perspectives

Session 4: Addressing Equity and Inclusion

1. Increase understanding of equity and inclusion and their influence on mentor-mentee interactions
2. Recognize the impact of conscious and unconscious assumptions, preconceptions, biases, and prejudices on the mentor-mentee relationship and acquire skills to manage them
3. Identify concrete strategies for learning about and addressing issues of equity and inclusion

Session 5: Fostering Independence

1. Define independence, its core elements, and how those elements change over the course of a mentoring relationship
2. Employ various strategies to build their mentee’s confidence, establish trust, and foster independence
3. Create an environment in which mentees can achieve goals

Session 6: Self-Efficacy and Ethical Awareness

1. Articulate ethical issues they need to discuss with their mentees
2. Clarify their roles as teachers and role models in educating mentees about ethics
3. Manage the power dynamic inherent in the mentoring relationship

Session 7: Promoting Professional Development

1. Identify the roles mentors play in the overall professional development of their mentees
2. Develop a strategy for guiding professional development using a written document
3. Initiate and sustain periodic conversations with mentees on professional goals and career development objectives and strategies
4. Engage in open dialogue on balancing the competing demands, needs, and interests of mentors and mentees (e.g., research productivity, coursework, creativity, independence, career preference decisions, non-research activities, personal development, and work-family balance)

Session 8: Work-Life Integration and Articulating a Mentoring Philosophy

1. Reflect on mentoring action plans
2. Articulate planned action(s)
3. Explore resources to support action plan(s)