After teaching at the university level for ten years, I have come to value intellectual exchange (in its many forms) as my toolbox for teaching and learning. To encourage interaction, I often experiment with a variety of learning approaches and materials and this helps me to connect with students in various ways. To help my students to succeed, they need clear goals, encouragement, and a trusted role model to guide them. To facilitate this, my student learning goals include: critical thinking, relevant application, respect for other perspectives, and honest collaboration.

To get at these goals, our team has developed a mentoring program for all students and researchers. In addition to weekly mentoring through the SPUR program, students will be socialized to lab and team-science culture. We will introduce concepts of ethics and inclusion, respect, and even explore researcher identity. Teams will meet weekly for mentoring activities and separately for team meetings throughout the semester.

To learn more about HAPPIEST, please visit here!