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Supervising and Mentoring Students

Overview

This workshop has been adapted from a graduate-level course. Therefore, there may be some references to student activities and assessment. You can interact with these activities individually to support your understanding of the content.

Mentoring students can be very rewarding, but if you feel unprepared to serve as a mentor, it can also make for a very stressful experience. In this workshop, you will hear about real experiences of McMaster graduate student-mentors, and reflect on your own experiences. You will learn about mentorship, its benefits, and how to be an effective mentor.

By the end of this workshop, you should be able to:

  • Recognize the characteristics of a mentoring relationship
  • Identify benefits of mentorship for mentors & mentees
  • Recognize different opportunities to act as a mentor
  • Identify the different phases of a mentorship relationship
  • Explain how to cultivate an effective mentoring relationship

Defining Mentorship

What Is Mentorship?

Please review the following video, to learn all about what a mentorship is.

I’d like you to take a moment and think about someone who has been a mentor to you. How did you know this person? What was the nature of your relationship? What is most memorable about your experience? Based on your experience, and that of Lisa, Shawn, and Megan in the video, how would you define mentorship? Please review the following video, to hear some personal reflections about mentorship.

From our experiences, you may be starting to see some commonalities about what constitutes mentorship. While definitions of mentoring vary across studies and programs, there are four points of consensus about the characteristics of a mentoring relationship (Crisp & Cruz, 2009; Jacobi, 1991).

  1. The first characteristic is that mentoring relationships are focused on the growth and development of mentees. As Allison and Megan describe, mentors are looking out for someone else’s interests, giving them a hand or helping them navigate a new situation.
  2. The second characteristic is that, relative to their mentees, mentors have “more” of something. This does not necessarily mean the mentor is in a position of higher authority. In fact, peer mentorship often occurs between someone who has lived through a specific experience, and someone who is new to that experience.
  3. The third characteristic is that mentoring experiences include broad forms of support. Many people think of mentorship as providing professional or career support, but, as you’ve already heard described in the videos, mentors also often provide some form of emotional or psychological support at some point in a mentoring relationship. If you’ve ever mentored undergraduate students, you’ve likely been approached by your mentees feeling stressed or overwhelmed. Helping your mentees navigate through this situation is one way of providing emotional support.
  4. The final characteristic is that mentoring relationships are personal and reciprocal. Both mentors and mentees have responsibility in the relationship and both are aware of and interested in pursuing a mentorship relationship. As Shawn and Lisa describe in the video, the relationship is bi-directional. While the mentoring relationship is focused on the growth and development of mentees, mentors also benefit from the experience.

Collectively, these characteristics distinguish mentoring from other developmental relationships in academia, like academic supervision. Ultimately, as a mentor, you’re invested in your mentee’s positive outcomes, demonstrating emotional commitment beyond the communication of degree or other academic requirements, care about your mentee’s professional and personal development, and advocacy on his or her behalf.

Activity

Lets review the information in this section through an activity. Try to match the four characteristics of mentorship with the appropriate term that can be used to describe a mentor.

Benefits of Mentorship

Benefits of Mentorship

Please review the following video, to learn about the many benefits of a mentorship.

A mentoring relationship doesn’t only benefit the mentee – as a mentor, you benefit as well! Previous research exploring the benefits of mentoring undergraduate students has suggested that there are a few common socio-emotional, interpersonal, and professional gains for graduate student mentors (Dolan & Johnson 2009; Reddick, Griffin, Cherwitz, Cérda-Pražák & Bunch, 2012).

In the video, Shawn and Lisa highlighted improvements in their ability to teach and communicate with others, as well as intellectual growth more broadly. By mentoring undergraduate students, mentors are often challenged to answer insightful questions, reflect on their practices, solidify and expand their existing knowledge, and support new learning.

Outside of skill development, research also suggests that mentoring undergraduate students can enhance the mentor’s research productivity. Having more support to complete projects can mean projects getting done quicker, and more projects get done, period!

Whether you plan to explore academic or industry positions following your degree, many jobs require the ability to mentor others. Your experience as a mentor can be included in a teaching portfolio and on your curriculum vitae where appropriate. Consider including the name of the mentee, the project they worked on/position they held (if applicable), as well as testimonials of their experience working with you as a mentor.

Reflection Activity

Based on the many benefits of mentorship discussed in this section, please consider:

  • What is one benefit to a mentor and one benefit to a mentee that resonates most with you?

If you would like to share your response, check out the interactive activity below. You can click on the plus sign in the bottom right corner to add a response. This is not an assessed component of this workshop, rather an opportunity for you and your peers to reflect and share. Point-form is perfectly acceptable, and your response will remain anonymous.

 

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Finding a Mentorship Opportunity

Finding a Mentorship Opportunity

Watch the video below, to learn about different types of mentorship opportunities.

Here is a list of some of the formal mentorship programs available at McMaster University:

  • Anthropology Skills and Knowledge Mentorship Program – A mentorship program where graduate students volunteer their time to answer questions that undergraduate students may have about anthropology.
  • Department of Sociology Mentoring Program – Matches incoming graduate students to returning students each year in order to provide new students with a mentor to which they can ask questions, become acquainted with the department and the city, and get support when they need it throughout the academic year.
  • Indigenous Mentorship Program  – Helps dismantle barriers to post-secondary education for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis students coming into or already within the Faculty of Health Sciences. Each year, Indigenous students are recruited from all areas of the Faculty of Health Sciences and related health programs to be Mentors.

Mentorship opportunities are not limited to formal mentoring programs. Informal mentoring is a natural component of relationships in the workplace, as well as in social and professional activities. As Shawn, Lisa, and Megan describe, this type of mentorship can happen in the classroom, in the laboratory, or through your extra-curricular activities.

Although the most common mentoring structure involves a one-on-one, face-to-face relationship between mentor and student, mentoring relationships may also be structured to include multiple students, otherwise known as group mentoring. It is also increasingly common for mentoring relationships to take place electronically  via technology, commonly referred to as e-mentoring.

Are there any opportunities, either formal or informal, that you can act as a mentor? Think about it, and if you want to, record your responses in the Answer Garden below.

Now, test your knowledge of the information provided in this section with the matching exercise below.

 

Cultivating a Mentoring Relationship

Cultivating a Mentoring Relationship

Watch the video below, to gain some insight on how to begin a mentoring relationship.

Five guidelines to help mentors and mentees express their expectations:

In the previous video, Shawn, Lisa, and Allison all talk about the importance of setting expectations and finding common ground when beginning a new mentoring relationship. Masters and Kreeger (2017) developed five guidelines to help mentors and mentees express their expectations. You can review these guidelines by clicking tab in the accordian below.

Whether you write out your expectations by hand, type them up, or come up with another creative way to record what you have discussed, having some form of documentation will help everyone remember what was decided on. You can also refer back to these recorded expectations throughout the relationship.

It is important to acknowledge that this document is not just of the expectations that a mentor has of a mentee. Including what a mentee can expect of you is just as important to establishing an effective relationship.

Considering the individual experiences and needs that each person brings to a relationship is very important. Existing templates can be a useful starting point. Using a template, you can work together with your mentee to create a unique document that captures both your needs. Some topics that you may want to discuss include:

  • How will we communicate?
  • What is the expected time commitment (e.g., to the project, relationship)?
  • What are our expectations around vacations and time off?
  • Where will the work take place (e.g., at home, in the lab, in an office)?
  • How will we resolve potential conflicts? Will there be published work coming out of the relationship and, if so, what are our expectations around authorship?

It is important to recognize that there is often a power imbalance between the mentor and the mentee. With this in mind, consider setting boundaries while establishing expectations. For example, with communication, is it appropriate for students to contact you or for you to contact a student using a personal phone number? If so, when?

As Lisa suggests, consider scheduling regular check-ins with your mentees, where you can both reflect on whether your expectations are still appropriate. Once established, expectations can be modified, added, or removed as the relationship grows or projects change.

Fostering A Mentorship

Fostering A Mentorship

There are a number of different ways you can foster a mentoring relationship once it’s begun. Watch the video below to learn how.

Discussion

Engaging your mentees in conversation is a great way to foster the mentorship. In the video, Shawn mentions that he engages his mentees in discussion using an inquiry approach, where mentees are challenged to ask and find answers to questions. These conversations can happen in the classroom or workplace, or you can find a more informal setting, like a coffee shop. How you choose to set those boundaries is between you and your mentee. For example, Megan describes keeping her meetings on campus. These boundaries may change as your mentoring relationship evolves. For Allison, entering the redefinition phase of a mentoring relationship often includes meeting with former mentees in social situations.

Encouragement

Provide encouragement to your mentees. Share what you’ve learned from your own experiences when things didn’t go according to plan. Look out for your mentee’s needs and interests by identifying opportunities to get involved in projects, activities, or events. You can help build your mentee build a network by connecting them to other students or faculty members they might benefit from knowing.

Self-Care

While your relationship is focused on the growth of your mentee, Lisa introduces the idea of self-care as an important consideration. It’s important to recognize and respect your own limits in any mentoring relationship. As the saying goes, you can’t pour from an empty cup.

Handling Difficult Situations

In a mentorship, there may be times that you face a challenging situation. Watch the video below, to learn about ways to handle difficult situations with your mentee.

Empathetic questioning combined with active listening is critical to a positive mentoring experience. As a mentor, your role is to listen first, suggest second. There are a number of different ways you can show you’re listening.

  • Non-verbal behavior matters. Consider, smiling and nodding. 
  • Focus your comments on whatever the mentee has just said. 
  • Use probing questions. (“Why do you think that is?”) 
  • Validate the mentee’s ideas and check for clarity through rephrasing. (“If I understand correctly, you’re saying that…”) 

As appropriate, try to include your mentee in decision-making. If your mentee comes to you with a challenge they’ve experienced, ask, “How have you tried to address this?” The more involved mentees are in the process, the more committed they will be to making a change.

Reflection:

Based on the information provided in this workshop, please consider:

  • How can you cultivate an effective mentoring relationship when working with undergraduate students? Think about something from this workshop that you’d like to implement.

If you would like to share your response, check out the interactive activity below. You can click on the plus sign in the bottom right corner to add a response. This is not an assessed component of this workshop, rather an opportunity for you and your peers to reflect and share. Point-form is perfectly acceptable, and your response will remain anonymous.

 

Made with Padlet

 

Mentorship Advice

Mentorship Advice

Watch the video below for some important advice for those interested in becoming a mentor.

Overall, mentoring undergraduate students is an important responsibility that can benefit both you and your mentee. If you are interested in exploring more about mentorship, please see the resource list below!

Resource List:

For students taking a supervisory role in the future: