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P2P is Back

December 17, 2025

Starting the Conversation with the 2025-2026 Cohort

Teaching can feel isolating, even in a busy department, and it can be hard to find the right colleague to talk to when something in a course is not working the way you hoped. It can also be difficult to know where to start. CTSI’s Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Faculty Mentoring for Teaching is one way we help instructors build a circle of conversational partners for teaching.

On December 4, we kicked off the 2025–26 cohort with 33 faculty members from 11 divisions, representing 350+ total years of teaching experience.

Why we’re sharing this

We want instructors across U of T to see what peer mentoring can look like in practice and borrow what fits their context. We also want to help departments and teaching-focused units who want to build mentorship but aren’t sure where to start. This post documents the structures, questions, and resources so others can adapt them.

What P2P is designed to do

P2P is not a traditional senior-junior model. It’s a reciprocal partnership where both people bring experience and questions, acting as co-mentors. 

We designed P2P to support three outcomes:

  1. Take a more deliberate look at teaching and students’ learning
  2. Use feedback to make targeted improvements in one course
  3. Build capacity to support others across the university

If you are building a mentoring initiative in your own context, one design choice that worked well for us was defining the partnership as reciprocal and then adding just enough structure to make follow-through realistic. You can adapt that balance to fit your setting.

What we did at the launch workshop

We designed the kickoff as a working session, prioritizing activities that moved partners forward immediately. By the end, most pairs had clarified expectations, scheduled their next meeting, and practiced conversation strategies.

1) We set norms for participation We began with a land acknowledgement and access check, inviting participants to name what they needed before moving into content.

Worth trying: Make participation a shared responsibility from the start.

2) We got partners talking immediately We used guided prompts covering teaching context, excitement about the program, and personal interests.

Worth trying: Start partner conversations in the first 10 minutes.

3) We facilitated connections beyond partners Participants created a “collective resume” on flip charts, then posted them for a gallery walk during lunch.

Steal this: Give people structured reasons to connect beyond their assigned partner.

4) We built partnership plans during the session Partners outlined their Mentoring Partnership Plan over lunch, focusing on trust, accountability, and expectations.

5) We trained for better conversations We introduced the “3 Cs” (coaching, consulting, collaborating) as ways to shift stance depending on partner needs. We practiced deep listening using structured activities focused on expanding reflection rather than jumping to solutions.

Reusable piece: Teach the conversational moves, not just good intentions.

6) We made feedback usable We discussed gathering teaching data from multiple sources (evaluations, peer observation, student work, analytics, reflections), emphasizing quick formative approaches that can be shared back to students, like one-minute papers.

7) We ended with concrete next steps Partners committed to gathering data, identifying up to three focus areas, and interpreting findings at their next meeting.

We also oriented participants to the P2P Team space with slides, worksheets, meeting ideas, and resources.

Common questions

How often should I meet with my partner? We recommend weekly meetings, especially early on. “Weekly” can mean different formats—an in-depth activity one week, a quick email check-in the next.

How do I be a good partner? Participants asked about avoiding bias, meeting partners where they are across different contexts, and making sense of unclear or contradictory student feedback. We shared resources on relationship-building and using feedback for improvement, and will continue this conversation in upcoming workshops.

Resources:

If you’re designing a mentorship initiative, these questions tell you where participants need structure, skill development, and tools.

Get Started

If you want to explore peer mentoring in your own context, we can help you think it through.

Get in touch with CTSI if you would like to:

  • Learn more about joining a future P2P cohort
  • Talk through what a peer mentoring model could look like in your department or unit
  • Request practical materials (launch agenda, partnership plan template, meeting prompts, and feedback tools)

To learn more, email ctsi.teaching@utoronto.ca and we will connect you with Cora McCloy and Cristina D’Amico, who facilitate the P2P program.

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