Akamai Mentor Workshop
Mentoring the Akamai way.
The Akamai Mentor Workshop will be held Friday May 26 and Saturday May 27, 2023, in Hilo Hawaii. Registration details coming soon.
ISEE’s Akamai Mentor Workshop uses nearly two decades of experience running successful internships to prepare and support Akamai mentors (engineers, technologists, and scientists), who design a summer project for a college intern.Â
Many STEM internships involve a mentored project–but not all projects are the same. Treating the mentored project as an experience that can be designed, the workshop guides mentors through a process that uses principles similar to those that guide curriculum design, including:
- Identifying a productive project, one that will be valuable to both the intern and the mentor
- Learning about themes related to persistence and inclusion, which include:
- Using the authentic practices of STEM
- Ownership & agency
- Recognition
- Belonging
- Applying the themes to the different phases and aspects of an internship project, such as:
- Introducing the project to the intern
- Integrating the intern into the work community
- Assessing and giving feedback to the intern
- Enabling day-to-day recognition of intern
- Wrapping up the project
Before the workshop, participants read relevant articles on research within four themes related to persistence and inclusion (see second bullet point above). At the workshop, they discuss what they’ve read with instructors and other participants, and apply it to the project they have in mind for their student intern. By the end of the workshop, participants develop a mentor plan that:
- Outlines an intern project that is valuable to the mentor and educational for the student.
- Teaches intern critical thinking skills and processes that are valued in the workplace.
- Fosters intern ownership over their project and promotes self-initiative.
- Supports intern in developing an identity as a scientist/engineer.
- Includes explicit strategies on giving effective feedback to an intern.
Many participants return and participate in the workshop, creating an enduring community of mentors on Hawai’i Island and Maui where many of the world’s premier telescopes are located.
Participating mentors and organizations
Currently, this workshop is offered in Hawai’i each May, with funding from the National Science Foundation ( AST#1743117).
Please contact us with any questions: akamai@ucsc.edu
2019 Mentor Workshop, held at the Naniloa in Hilo, May 17-18, 2019
  
