Mentoring Conversations Designed to Promote Student Teacher Learning

Abstract

Concern has been expressed in recent research about the preoccupation by school-based mentors and student teachers with immediate issues of practical performance, rather than inquiry into, or expansion of, a rationale for that performance. This paper reports on a training programme in mentoring conversations that was designed to achieve the latter purpose. An analysis of 22 audio-taped transcripts of feedback conversations between mentors and their student teachers revealed that before training a common pattern was for mentors to give a great deal of advice about how to overcome undisclosed concerns about a student teacher's practice. After training, mentors more frequently disclosed their concerns, checked to see if their concerns were shared and engaged the student teachers' personal theories about their reasons for practising in the way they did before developing joint solutions. The implications for school-based teacher education are discussed in terms of the training requirements for practising professionals if they are to engage in mentoring conversations that are likely to promote their student teachers' professional development.