AK UNiTE Mentoring Resources

This document was adapted from Stelter et al. 2021.

Overarching Mentoring Resources

Specific Themed Mentoring Resources

Theme 1. Knowledge and attitudes of mentors regarding disparities in biology career achievement.

Cultural awareness and competency: building knowledge of your own culture and the culture of others, which provides the basis for developing cultural competency.

Stereotype threat: an internal feeling and concern about confirming a negative stereotype associated with a group (e.g., racial, ethnic, gender, and age) with which the individual identifies.

Microaggressions: subtle verbal and nonverbal slights, insults, or invalidations directed at individuals due to their membership in a group (e.g., racial, ethnic, gender, sexual orientation, and physical disability), which are rooted in biases about individuals in that group.

  • This paper has recommendations for using mentoring to support PEERS and other under-represented students in STEM.  Haeger, H., & Fresquez, C. (2016). Mentoring for inclusion: The impact of mentoring on undergraduate researchers in the sciences. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 15(3), ar36.  https://www.lifescied.org/doi/full/10.1187/cbe.16-01-0016
  • I haven't read this paper, but it might be helpful, as well: Frederick, A., Grineski, S. E., Collins, T. W., Daniels, H. A., & Morales, D. X. (2021). The Emerging STEM Paths and Science Identities of Hispanic/Latinx College Students: Examining the Impact of Multiple Undergraduate Research Experiences. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 20(2), 

Theme 2. Mentor roles to promote mentee biology outcomes.

 

Trusted adult friend: a high-quality relationship between a mentor and a mentee that provides social-emotional and instrumental support.

Role model: being a positive role model as a mentor includes acting in a way that is worthy of imitation and, in fact, mentees often express a desire to be like their mentors.

Connector or advocate: strategies for connecting their mentees to people, places, experiences, and opportunities that will further their mentee's biology goals

 

  • Personal strategy for staying connected with mentee when I am very busy: creation of online shared documents that included working objectives for the week, readings/videos/resources, and space for blog-feedback which was usually stimulated with a question posed at the end of the week to capture students' thoughts and progress. This allowed me to work independently of students when my schedule was really busy.
  • Sea Grant Community Engaged Internship strategy: throughout the defined period of national internships (students paired across the country with different researchers) there were designated meetings for mentors & mentees, and mentees only, where CEI project leaders offered training directed for both groups, offered meeting space for students, and at the end of the experiences students presented online. I think the original idea was for students to meet in person but COVID limited that. But I think it would be nice to see engagement among the participants. 
  • Adam Grant: Give and Take

Theme 3. Mentor behaviors to promote mentees' positive attitudes about biology.

Providing feedback in culturally sensitive ways:  training on what types of feedback are relevant to the program and how to provide feedback in a supportive, culturally sensitive way

 

Microaffirmations:  small acts that communicate inclusion and support that are designed to affirm to the recipient that they are capable and welcome.

Highlight communal goals and opportunities in biology: strategies for how mentors can help communicate the communal nature of biology careers through their interactions with their mentees.  

  • Guide to Collaborative Science: Collaborative science is a knowledge co-creation process that informs natural resource management decisions by involving scientists, managers, communities, and others to advance understanding in a manner that none of them working alone could accomplish. 
  • How research opportunities include civic engagement and service to Alaskan communities 

Foster a growth mindset: developing the cognitive approach of having a growth mindset, in which one's abilities are thought to be malleable and can be improved with effort.

Build tolerance for failure and support feelings of self-efficacy: learning specific strategies for supporting mentees' tolerance for their own failures.

  • Failure Mindset: 
  • Would like to have more strategies for overcoming the fear of failure (basically things that keep kids from even trying something new)

Theme 4. Program-specific topics.

Activities, curricula, and fieldwork and laboratory safety (e.g., CURES): how to connect the program activities to real-world problems and discoveries and how the activities or problems are relevant to mentees in the program.

  • CUREnet: 
  • Beltran, R. S., Marnocha, E., Race, A., Croll, D. A., Dayton, G. H., & Zavaleta, E. S. (2020). Field courses narrow demographic achievement gaps in ecology and evolutionary biology. Ecology and Evolution, 10(12), 5184-5196.
  • Race, A. I., De Jesus, M., Beltran, R. S., & Zavaleta, E. S. (2021). A comparative study between outcomes of an in‐person versus online introductory field course. Ecology and evolution, 11(8), 3625-3635.

Group mentoring: training on how to manage groups of mentees, including group development processes.

Peer mentoring: training on how to utilize same-age or near-age peer mentors.

Co-mentoring: strategies, practices, and training on how to manage roles and expectations with research partners and co-mentors for a single mentee