Project TRUE: Mentor Training Toolkit

Preparing mentors for their role is essential. Though most research tells us that you cannot teach or train someone how to be a mentor, there is tremendous value in preparing mentors for their upcoming experience through self-reflection, setting expectations, and discussion.

Ultimately, mentors will learn and develop their skills while they are mentoring. For this reason, in addition to preparing mentors for their role, it is critical to create a supportive and inclusive community to support mentors during their mentoring experience.

This “Mentoring Training Toolkit” distills what was learned in the years of training undergraduate students to be mentors into five modules, each focused on a key component of mentoring: Mentoring Overview, Effective Communication, Youth Development, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and Conducting Research. Each module includes several easy-to-implement activities, linked resources and templates, and suggestions for adapting the activity to a digital platform. If you are not supporting mentors who are also simultaneously preparing a science research project, you should skip the “Conducting Research” module.

While the activities were developed for undergraduates serving as near-peer research mentors for 3-4 high school students during a tiered urban ecology research mentoring program, we believe they could be adapted for any audience who is beginning a mentoring experience.