Developing and Implementing a Blended Faculty Teaching Mentorship Program: A Canadian Pilot Project

Abstract

This article presents the results of the development and implementation of a mentorship program, now in its sixth year, designed to support the professional development of teaching skills for faculty and contract instructors. The program is unique in that it is a combination of a variety of other approaches such as formal and informal mentoring as well as intra-departmental and interdepartmental mentoring. This model incorporates the effective elements of a mentor program as identified in the literature, while eschewing the traditional model of one-to-one mentoring between senior and junior colleagues. The findings to date, which include more support for teaching after participating in the project as well as an increase in the amount of faculty accessing a mentor, indicate that the program is achieving its intended goals and should continue. The authors provide recommendations and suggestions for the inclusion of a teaching mentorship program at other institutions within (or outside of) Canada.