Mentoring Of Student Teachers Research Articles

Leading collegially: Shifting paradigms for effective student teacher mentoring during work-integrated learning

Teacher training has long relied on experienced school mentors as role models for novice teachers. However, qualifications and experience alone cannot remain the prerequisites for teacher leadership in 21st century schools. How can experienced school mentors collegially mentor new teachers into leadership, without abrogating their responsibilities? In this article, a constructivist approach was explored to mentor new teachers into leadership with the focus on establishing symbiotic relationships based on the mutual continuous professional development (CPD) of experienced school mentors and novice teachers. A multi-faced approach to leadership is proposed. Data regarding the perceptions of 241 final-year student teachers of their mentors’ collegial leadership competencies were collected using a questionnaire. The findings indicate the positive perceptions that the student teachers had of their mentors’ collegial leadership competencies. In the study reported on here, the focus was on the perceived characteristics of experienced school mentors to assist student teachers with work-integrated learning. The findings provide insights into enhancing the interpersonal collegial competencies of experienced school mentors to improve the school-work-integrated knowledge of student teachers.

Novice mentors versus mentees: Mentoring experiences in mathematics at General Education and Training phase

In the South African educational system, student teachers are deployed to schools for practical experience, where they are monitored by lecturers from their universities. Student teachers are also mentored by teachers allocated to them by the school principal. Some of these mentoring teachers are themselves newly qualified and may have little or no teaching experience. This study analysed the relationship between these various role players during the teaching of mathematics in General Education and Training (GET) phase, at secondary schools in the Western Cape. The theoretical framework for the study was provided by Lave and Wenger’s Communities of Practice. An ethnographic qualitative research design was used for collecting data from classroom observations and semi-structured interviews. The selected participants comprised four novice mathematics teachers, four mathematics student teachers in the GET phase, two lecturers and one school principal. The purposive selection method was used to select these participants. The findings revealed that novice mentor teachers were challenged by facing (1) no or little communication and collaboration between themselves and lecturers, (2) limited cooperation between mentor and mentee in the teaching of mathematics in GET phase, (3) limited mathematics content knowledge by student teachers and (4) limited mentoring skills of novice mentors. It is recommended that universities create a sound educational partnership with mentor teachers. Universities should also consider the voices of novice mentor teachers in their mentoring of student teachers.

A REVIEW OF THE DYNAMICS AND COMPLEXITIES OF PRE-SERVICE TEACHER TRAINING BY DISTANCE IN SOUTH AFRICA

While there is broad consensus about the relevance of open and distance learning (ODL) to the teaching and learning delivery in higher education, there is limited research about the challenges facing distance learning institutions, especially those with pre-service teacher training. South Africa is one of the countries in Africa with strong open and distance learning system, with thousands of individuals obtaining their teaching qualifications annually. As established in literature, the training of sufficient teaching manpower for the continent of Africa might require the building of one new university per week for the next twenty years, had open and distance learning system not discovered. However, this review identified many challenges in the ODL based pre-service teacher training, especially in the areas of learners’ support system, communication and feedback, school-based mentoring of student teachers, as well as meeting the needs of students that are living with disabilities. The paper recommends some measures for stakeholders to strengthen ODL based pre-service teacher training so that it meets the 21st century demand for quality teachers.

Initial teacher education students' perceptions during a practicum in primary schools: a New Zealand experience

PurposeThis paper is about mentoring of initial teacher education (ITE) students whilst on their practicum.Design/methodology/approachInformed by a social constructivist theoretical framework, an online survey was used to capture the breadth of quantitative data and the richness of qualitative responses relating to factors that impact student teachers' experiences during practicum.FindingsQuantitative data indicate that many student teachers were positive about the practicum, but this varied across the type of school in which they were placed. The qualitative data analyses showed a greater in-depth understanding of the range of issues that impacted how student teachers are treated in their role as a mentee by the mentor and the wider school community.Practical implicationsBetter understanding the experiences of student teachers helps to inform ITE providers of the critical role that mentor teachers play in preparing student teachers. The practical implications are that strategies to develop deep and collaborative partnerships amongst ITE providers, mentor teachers and school leaders, which build stronger understandings of a mentor teacher's role, are critical in order to support student teachers.Originality/valueThis research study repositions the critical nature of effective mentoring of student teachers so that mentor teachers and ITE providers can be informed by the voices and lived realities of these student teachers. The mentoring relationship needs to be critically interrogated to provide a more even and supportive “playing field” for all student teachers.

Inside Mentor-Mentee Meetings in Pre-Service Teacher School-based Teaching Practice in Zimbabwe

Mentor-mentee meetings are a critical aspect of student teacher mentoring during teaching practice (TP)as they significantly contribute to the success of the whole mentoring process and consequently to the positive accomplishment of the entire practicum. This study contributes to debates on mentor-mentee meetings given the limited research on this phenomenon. By investigating the kinds of knowledge student teachers gain from such meetings, the findings may influence researchers to investigate other aspects of mentor-mentee meetings.

Mentoring the Student-Teacher on School Records and Record Keeping for Effective Teaching Practice Exercise in Nigeria

In every professions, there are period for internship. Teaching profession is not left out. The student-teacher goes out for teaching practice for a specific period of time under the supervision of more experienced teachers. Among what is expected for the student-teacher to know is school records and record keeping. It is on this regards that this paper hinged on mentoring, the student-teacher on school records and record keeping for effective teaching practice exercise in Nigeria. To this effect, the paper addressed the meaning of school records and recording keeping, types of records kept in schools, importance of school records, the type of records to be kept by student-teacher, mentoring student-teachers on how to enter some records. The paper concluded that student-teacher should practically know and keep record which was theoretically taught in the mother institution. The paper recommended, among other, colleges of education, faculty of education should integrate record keeping as part of teaching practice practicum just as micro-teaching, school records and record keeping should be form part of the things required to be supervised when their supervisor visit them, the school head of student-teacher positing should organize orientation/induction programme for the student-teacher and student-teacher should be included in Student Industrial Work Experiences Scheme(SIWES) Keywords: School records, keeping, student-teacher mentoring, teaching practice. DOI : 10.7176/JEP/10-18-13 Publication date :June 30 th 2019

Student Teachers’ Experiences in the Student Teacher Mentoring Programme (STMP) in Zimbabwe—A Case for Masvingo Province

This multiple case study reports on an investigation into student teachers’ teaching practice experiences in the 2.5.2 programme in Masvingo Province, Zimbabwe. A qualitative research design was adopted to investigate this phenomenon through focus group interviews and questionnaires with a purposeful sample of 20 student teachers who had just completed their teaching practice. The interviews were recorded using a digital recorder and transcribed verbatim by the researchers. The data were manually coded to find the themes; these are presented using direct quotations and were analysed using content analysis. The findings revealed that mentors play a critical role in the training of teachers in Zimbabwe and that some student teachers had problems with stating aims in their schemes of work and objectives in lesson plans. They also experienced difficulties with lesson planning and had challenges in lesson delivery. Class control was difficult for many student teachers and lesson evaluation proved tough for them. These insights suggest that host teachers’ colleges should devote more time to professional studies where student teachers practice planning lessons and evaluating them, making schemes of work and engaging in microteaching. These could be followed with reflection and discussions that facilitate better performance in teaching. Considering the critical role that mentors play during teaching practice, it would be recommended that a token of appreciation be awarded to them.

Ask Not What Your Mentor Can Do for You…: The Role of Reciprocal Exchange in Maintaining Student–Teacher Mentorships

Mentoring relationships between adolescents and adults are an important source of social capital that facilitates young people's academic and social development. Studies show that close relationships with teachers especially benefit socioeconomically disadvantaged adolescents, yet little is known about teacher‐mentors’ perspectives on mentorship. This study draws on in‐depth interviews with teachers in low‐income high schools and ethnographic observations to examine the dynamics that sustain student–teacher mentoring relationships. I engage social exchange frameworks to show that reciprocal exchanges that generated intangible rewards for teachers, such as gratitude and purpose, helped maintain mentorships. I find that teachers’ motivations to invest in students were contingent on the strength of the relationship. Teachers withdrew assistance when they perceived that relationships became nonreciprocal. The context in which teachers interacted with mentees and the form of support they had given also influenced their evaluations of reciprocity. These findings contribute to a growing body of literature on relationships that challenge strict divisions between the function of strong and weak ties. Further, these findings contribute to social capital literature by showing that once accessed, social capital does not lie latent as network ties maintain the same willingness to help. In actuality, resourceful ties must be maintained.

Understandings of Mentoring within Initial Teacher Education School Placement Contexts: a Scottish perspective

ABSTRACTWithin the context of Scottish Initial Teacher Education, this qualitative study critically addresses mentor and mentee understandings of mentoring primary education student teachers. It introduces a Scottish perspective to the international body of literature on student teacher mentoring, and contributes new understandings of mentoring by addressing the role of mentees as well as those of the mentor. An instrumental, collective case study research design was employed with semi-structured interviews of six class teacher mentors and their student teachers conducted to ascertain understandings of the mentoring process. Findings indicate that participants understood mentoring as a multidimensional process designed to support the professional learning of student teachers. The key mentoring relationship is between class teacher mentor and mentee, and essential in developing mentee teaching capacity. Analysis of responses suggests an understanding of mentoring as involving both personal and professional dimensions. The data reveals the complex nature of the mentoring process in terms of the multitude of potential interpretations of these two dimensions and of the ways in which they overlap. It is recommended that all teacher education programmes and associated placement schools consider the provision of effective mentor and mentee education to improve the quality and consistency of mentoring for student teachers.

An analysis of three different approaches to student teacher mentoring and their impact on knowledge generation in practicum settings

Mentoring in Teacher Education is a key component in the professional development of student teachers. However, little research focuses on the knowledge shared and generated in mentoring conversations. In this paper, we explore the knowledge student teachers articulate in mentoring conversations under three different post-lesson approaches to mentoring: dialogue journaling, regular conferences and stimulated-recall conferences. Propositional discourse analysis identified 4534 propositions that were subsequently classified into four types of knowledge: recalls, appraisals, rules and artefacts along with the precision of arguments therein. Additionally, log-linear analyses were conducted to search for differences among the three mentoring approaches. The results indicate that dialogue journaling demonstrated more appraisals of practice, regular conferences emphasised rules and artefacts, and stimulated-recall favoured more precision in the type of the arguments stated. The three mentoring styles favour different but complementary understandings of practice and point to the impact of various approaches to mentoring on the sort of knowledge shared and generated in post-lesson mentoring conferences.

The Perceptions of Teachers towards the Effectiveness of Class-based Mentors in the Mentoring of Student Teachers on Teaching Practice

The Perceptions of Teachers towards the Effectiveness of Class-based Mentors in the Mentoring of Student Teachers on Teaching Practice

Conceptualizing the Roles of Mentor Teachers During Student Teaching

The field-based mentoring of student teachers is often an idiosyncratic and nuanced practice in which mentors' conceptualizations of their interactions with student teachers are generated through personal experiences with teacher education. If teacher educators and programs are to strengthen the tie between campus and field-based teacher education, in effect bridging the perceived disconnect of campus-based learning and the “realities” of the classroom, acknowledging these divergent perspectives is a first step in providing transformative learning experiences for student teachers. To that end, in this article the authors use recent empirical research into the school-based mentoring of student teachers to describe three conceptions of mentor teacher roles and responsibilities. Centered in the notion that mentoring is often a socially constructed practice, these roles include a consideration of the mentor teacher as (1) instructional coach, (2) emotional support system, and (3) socializing agent. Through a discussion of these conceptions, the hope is to further the conversation about ways to provide a common language between university and field-based teacher educators.

Mentoring of Student Teachers and Its Impact on Pupils and Schools

Mentoring of Student Teachers and Its Impact on Pupils and Schools

Effective Mentoring of Student Teachers: Attitudes, Characteristics and Practices of Successful Associate Teachers Within a New Zealand Context

Effective Mentoring of Student Teachers: Attitudes, Characteristics and Practices of Successful Associate Teachers Within a New Zealand Context

How Foreign Language Teachers in Georgia Evaluate their Professional Preparation: A Call for Action

Abstract: The purpose of this article is to report on a collaborative project among members of colleges of education, colleges of arts and sciences, and high school foreign language departments. The project involved conducting an online survey of 341 current foreign language teachers in Georgia in order to determine how these K‐12 teachers perceived and evaluated the effectiveness of their professional preparation. Close to 60% of the teachers in the sample were graduates of colleges and universities in Georgia. Most of the others had received their training from various other colleges and universities in the United States, and 51 individuals reported that they had graduated from foreign institutions. The survey consisted of 42 questions asking teachers to evaluate their preparation in language skills, knowledge of foreign language standards, planningfor instruction, methodology, using technology in instruction, meeting the needs of socially and economically diverse students, classroom management skills, and professional growth. The survey results strongly suggest that foreign language teacher development programs should include (1) more time spent in carefully supervised and monitored prestudent‐teaching field experiences; (2) more careful mentoring of student teachers during the student‐teaching internship; (3) more time spent in language learning experiences in countries where the target language is spoken; (4) more emphasis on developing foreign language proficiency in the requisite university classes; and (5) more effort spent on teaching effective classroom management.

New Qualifying Requirements for the Mentoring of Student Teachers in the Netherlands

SUMMARY In 1997, courses at Dutch teacher education institutes were changed so that students nearing completion of their courses are now expected to teach without immediate supervision over a period of a few months. The introduction of this more school-based teacher training has been introduced to minimise the ‘practice shock’ that the beginning teacher (ieraar in opleiding--hereafter lio) often experience. This paper describes a study of 83 mentors and 12 institute teachers on the consequences of this change for the content as well as the process of mentoring of students in the final stages of their teacher education.

Support and Challenge in Teacher Education

AbstractThe study described in this paper reports findings in line with previous studies that discern more support than challenge in the area of teacher education concerned with mentoring of student teachers by teachers. Thus, the teachers say that support was their main emphasis, and challenge a lesser emphasis when they worked with the student teachers. Their students, however, seem unaware even of the amount of challenge which the teachers thought they offered. The paper discusses these findings and puts forward an interpretation based on a comparison drawn from the field of colour perception. The paper's conclusion, in drawing attention to the effects which support and challenge might have on one another when they are in combination, endorses the view that it is important not only to study the nature of challenge and support in themselves but also to study the relationship between them.

Learning from change: the mentoring triangle

Studies of relationships in the encounters of initial teacher education have tended to focus on pairs of actors — the higher education (HE) tutor and the student; the school‐based tutor and the student. This article looks at the occasion, formalised in the new partnership arrangements, when HE tutor and student meet to discuss issues of common concern. It identifies some benefits, in terms of clarification of role and responsibility, of the present definition of partnership. In the first year of the scheme it is apparent that the class teachers responsible for the mentoring of student teachers have a greater sense of ownership of the process and are more confident in their position vis a vis the higher education tutor. The higher education tutor finds that within a tighter specification of tasks, a distinctive contribution is recognised and respected. The student teacher's position and status in the triangle of relationships is the one that needs some further clarification, especially in relation to the interim and final judgements of competence.