60-Second SoTL – Episode 14

This week’s episode features an article from the Journal on Excellence in College Teaching and explores how faculty and staff support learning and development when they mentor undergraduate research in global contexts:

Cruz, Laura, Maureen Vandermaas-Peeler, Amy L. Allocco, and Kate Patch. (2022). “Mentoring Undergraduate Research in Global Contexts: Insights From a National Study.” Journal on Excellence in College Teaching 33 (4): 21-35.

The study stems from a collaboration among the American Association of Colleges & Universities, the Forum on Education Abroad, and Elon University’s Center for Research on Global Engagement.

View a transcript of this episode.

The episode was hosted by Jessie L. Moore, Director of the Center for Engaged Learning and Professor of Professional Writing & Rhetoric. 60-Second SoTL is produced by the Center for Engaged Learning at Elon University.

Read More about Mentoring Undergraduate Research in Global Contexts

Explore the Center’s Resources on Mentoring

Salient Practices

Following an extensive review of the literature on mentoring undergraduate research, ten salient practices emerged which support effective mentoring of undergraduate researchers. These practices can be used to develop a mentoring pedagogy of high quality.

Background picture of two people at a desk with their laptops open and looking at graphs. White bold text reads: "Presenting is a noteworthy accomplishment which encourages students to deeply analyze and synthesize their research, helping them gain a more thorough understanding of their work." Author names: Sabrina L. Thurman, Kenan Carter, Anna Grace Gilbert, Megan Parks, and Kyla Zeldin.

Collaboration in Creation: A Guide for Preparing and Presenting Research Posters – Part 2, For Mentors 

In our previous post, we, the members of the Infant Development Lab, shared advice for students on how to prepare to present research posters. In Part 2 of this series, we will now share several ways faculty mentors can support…

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Strategies and Resources for Mentees Developing Mentoring Constellations 

Given that mentoring relationships are learner-centered, mentees should have significant agency in developing their mentoring constellations. In this section, we explore strategies and resources mentees can use to identify and develop meaningful and mentoring relationships.   Mentoring relationships “promote academic, social,…

White quote text on red and orang illustration of academics at a poster presentation: "Not only can presenting challenge you to think of your research from the perspective of a viewer, but it will also push you to contribute something unique to your field of research."

Collaboration in Creation: A Guide for Preparing and Presenting Research Posters – Part 1, For Students 

“No idea is fully formed until it can be communicated.”   The Boyer Commission 1998 As we near the end of the academic year, many undergraduate research students and their mentors are planning to present research posters showcasing their accomplishments. In…

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“I can find my North Star”: Understanding Mentoring Constellations in Practice  

In Mentoring Matters, we introduce a definition of mentoring relationships and explore the mentoring constellation model in higher education. Here we consider the important question, how do mentoring constellations operate in practice? From our comprehensive analyses of multiple data sources,…

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Mentoring in a Constellation: Supervisors and Mentors of Student Employees

In our 2020 institutional survey on mentoring, fourth-year students identified on-campus student employment as the fifth most common experience that prepared them to connect with potential mentors. Supervisors of student employees offer a dynamic example of meaningful relationships that can…

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What’s in an Undergraduate Research Space?

This semester, we have found ourselves thinking about the importance of research spaces for undergraduate research mentoring and research productivity. Dr. Thurman recently returned from a post-promotion sabbatical and rebuilt the infrastructure for her lab. Her psychology research program centers…

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Explore the Center’s Resources on Global Learning

Elon Statement on Integrating Global Learning with the University Experience

Higher-Impact Study Abroad and Off-Campus Domestic Study Download a Printer-Friendly (PDF) Copy of the Elon Statement on Global Learning From 2015 to 2017, 25 scholars participated in the Center for Engaged Learning research seminar on Integrating Global Learning with the University Experience:…

Hand-drawn map of relationships supporting students' development. Text overlay reads, "Mentoring Matters. Mentoring in a Constellation."

Conceptualizing Mentoring Constellations in Study Abroad: Mentors’ Perspectives

Recently I had the opportunity to think about mentoring in the context of a semester study abroad program with undergraduate research (UR) mentors working with DIS, Study Abroad in Scandinavia. Before talking with the mentors, I had asked their students…

Hand-drawn map of relationships supporting students' development. Text overlay reads, "Mentoring Matters. Mentoring in a Constellation."

Conceptualizing Mentoring Constellations in Study Abroad: Students’ Perspectives

What kind of development and/or support do your mentors provide? It was necessary at some point to figure out how the knowledge I was obtaining at university could be applied. Therefore … I worked at a biotech company where I…

Hand-drawn map of relationships supporting students' development. Text overlay reads, "Mentoring Matters. Mentoring in a Constellation."

Mentoring Constellations in Global Contexts

Recent scholarship emphasizes the essential role of mentoring to support student engagement in undergraduate research (UR) and global learning and highlights the potential of blending these high-impact practices (HIPs) for enhanced learning and relationship-building (Allocco et al. 2022; Whitehead et…

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Mentoring Magic: Mentored Undergraduate Research in Global Contexts 

Making College “Worth It” – Season 2, Episode 1 Dawn Whitehead and Maureen Vandermaas-Peeler, two of the co-editors of Mentored Undergraduate Research in Global Contexts: Integrated High-Impact Practices for Student Success, join our podcast to talk about the intersection of…

Cartoon image of two people speaking in a city street with each of their speech bubbles reflecting a different language. An overlay reads, "If learners can navigate while abroad without learning the language, I worry that they will miss opportunities to learn about the culture in a way needed for intercultural understanding."

Using Generative AI to Support Global Learning Could Leave Cultural Lessons Lost in Translation

I feel a little silly, but also proud to say that I was able to, at least minimally, keep my language learning streak alive while I took a vacation to Europe last month. Since the throes of COVID, I’ve been…

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Facilitating Integration of and Reflection on Engaged and Experiential Learning

Since 2019, I’ve been working with my colleague Paul Miller to create an institutional toolkit for fostering both students’ self-reflection and their mentoring conversations with peers, staff, and faculty in order to deepen students’ educational experiences. Our institution, Elon University,…

Browse all blog posts on global learning