Tips For New Faculty: Engaging Your Graduate Students In Independent Thought

This contribution describes certain strategies and lessons-learned which have proven effective at improving the independent thought and problem-solving skills of graduate students. In particular, we highlight two specific interactions: advisor / student, and student / student interactions during three main venues. The first venue is written communications such as email, daily or weekly research summaries, literature review / discussions, and papers. The second venue is oral communication via face-to-face meetings in an office or in the classroom. The third venue is demonstrative communication via laboratory training, and side-by-side data analysis on computers. Each mode of communication plays a key role in helping students grow into professional researchers with skills in independent problem solving.