D. Mentorship on teaching
A. Orientation to College Teaching & Student Learning | B. Learning About Teaching | C. Instructional Practice | D. Mentorship on Teaching | E. Reflection on Instructional Practice |
Requirements:
The mentorship component is designed to broaden your exposure to and promote reflection on the range of responsibilities involved in teaching that go beyond typical duties associated with being a GSI. To accomplish these goals, candidates should choose a specific teaching project (e.g., delivering a lecture, course planning and syllabus development, revision of a course component) in collaboration with a mentor.
Your mentor does NOT have to be the faculty supervisor of a course for which you are a GSI or your faculty dissertation advisor. Your mentor also does NOT have to teach in your specific discipline of graduate study or teach at the University of Michigan. It may even be best for your professional development as a teacher to select a mentor who is not your research advisor or course supervisor.
Mentorship on Teaching
More Detail
- As part of their preparation to teach as a future faculty member, participants must complete a mentorship on college-level teaching. They must meet at least 2 times with a U-M faculty member or a faculty member elsewhere to discuss some aspect of the work (e.g., goals for student learning, pedagogical approaches, a debrief of the materials you created). Meetings must include an initial discussion of project plans and a final meeting to debrief and get feedback on the project after it is completed. The mentorship must include an endeavor above and beyond preparing to teach courses to which GSIs are appointed. The mentor and mentee should select a mutually agreeable project. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:
- designing, presenting, and receiving feedback on a guest lecture
- preparing a syllabus, instructional materials or assignments for a course you would teach as a faculty member
- conducting a research project on teaching and learning
- engaging in course revision, including a process associated with moving a course online
- Documentation submitted for a mentorship experience must be verified by the faculty mentor. The process of verifying completion of a mentorship has several steps:
- Submit documentation for your mentorship on the My Dashboard page. Include the correct full email address for your faculty mentor.
- An automatically generated email is then sent to the faculty mentor, requesting verification.
- Via a secure website, the mentor verifies your documentation. Mentors do NOT evaluate your teaching and their responses will not be shared with individual departments for use in GSI hiring decisions or departmental teaching evaluations.
- After receiving mentor verification, CRLT staff update the status of your documentation, which can be viewed on the My Dashboard page.
- Participants are responsible for securing verification from their mentors. Please expect a time lag of at least two weeks for receiving mentor verification and an additional time lag of at least two weeks for CRLT staff to update the status of your submission after mentor verification is received. If you have questions about or problems with requesting faculty or consultant verification, please send an email to [email protected].
Resources and Support:
To Find a U-M Faculty Mentor, please contact the desired mentor directly to explore the possibility of a mentorship experience regarding teaching.