As high achieving undergraduates progress through their degrees and choose their specialisation, they inevitably reach the stage where they must consider whether they will add an honours year to their degree and/or enrol in a higher degree. The students in my degree majors  (Climate System Science and Climate Dynamics) are in an Advanced Science degree and hence have an honours year built into their program. These students need additional support, exposure and guidance to transition them into a research degree framework which a majority of their peers do not require. To aid students in this transition process, I regularly supervise summer interns, SCIF research and honours students in various short research projects. I utilise a scaffolded and zone of proximal development approach (Vygotsky, 1978) where students are given a lot of support and guidance at the commencement of the course but the scaffolding is minimised or shifted to a different skill (e.g, from developing a literature review to data analysis) over time. 

Students are not expected to reach research mastery by the end of pre-honours courses but are consequently better prepared for their honours year. An honours year provides students with much needed insight into the expectations of a higher research degree and valuable input into their decision making process for their future career pathway. 

As the undergraduate coordinator for the CCRC, I also help connect students with appropriate supervisors for research project courses. In order to create a successful student-supervisor relationship, this requires careful matching of the student's degree, grades, specific skill and expectations to the prospective supervisor's academic background, supervision style and expectations. Often this also requires me to mentor and provide oversight to early and mid career researchers (e.g., senior postdocs) who are interested in gaining some supervision or undergraduate teaching experience. 

I judge the success of my approach by the fact that most of these students have gone on to enrol in higher degrees.  

References:

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press