Investigating educative mentoring for provisionally certificated teachers in the New Zealand primary school

<p>The Guidelines for Induction and Mentoring and Mentor Teachers were published in 2011 by the New Zealand Teachers Council. The Guidelines signalled a shift from what had been an induction programme based on advice and guidance to one that involved educative mentoring. These guidelines were developed to support the provision of nationally consistent, high quality, and comprehensive support for provisionally certificated teachers (PCTs). This qualitative investigation used an interpretative case study approach to describe what educative mentoring looked like in three New Zealand primary schools. Data were gathered using an online survey, interviews, recorded meeting and analysis of documents. The findings were that mentors and provisionally registered teachers had differing levels of understanding of educative mentoring. While mentors espoused using educative mentoring components (Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand, 2015a, pp. 25-26) this did not appear to be happening in practice. This suggests the need for mentor training if educative mentoring is to become embedded. Mentors need training to understand what educative mentoring really means. In particular the elements of deconstruction (describing, analysing, and discussing evidence) and co-construction (setting new personal goals) were missing to some degree in each relationship investigated. The process of induction and mentoring is to develop practice and ultimately for the provisionally registered teacher to attain the Practising Teacher Criteria. However this study revealed that the developmental process of practice appears to be more focused on meeting the Practising Teacher Criteria than developing understanding through the setting of personal goals.</p>

Investigating educative mentoring for provisionally certificated teachers in the New Zealand primary school

<p>The Guidelines for Induction and Mentoring and Mentor Teachers were published in 2011 by the New Zealand Teachers Council. The Guidelines signalled a shift from what had been an induction programme based on advice and guidance to one that involved educative mentoring. These guidelines were developed to support the provision of nationally consistent, high quality, and comprehensive support for provisionally certificated teachers (PCTs). This qualitative investigation used an interpretative case study approach to describe what educative mentoring looked like in three New Zealand primary schools. Data were gathered using an online survey, interviews, recorded meeting and analysis of documents. The findings were that mentors and provisionally registered teachers had differing levels of understanding of educative mentoring. While mentors espoused using educative mentoring components (Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand, 2015a, pp. 25-26) this did not appear to be happening in practice. This suggests the need for mentor training if educative mentoring is to become embedded. Mentors need training to understand what educative mentoring really means. In particular the elements of deconstruction (describing, analysing, and discussing evidence) and co-construction (setting new personal goals) were missing to some degree in each relationship investigated. The process of induction and mentoring is to develop practice and ultimately for the provisionally registered teacher to attain the Practising Teacher Criteria. However this study revealed that the developmental process of practice appears to be more focused on meeting the Practising Teacher Criteria than developing understanding through the setting of personal goals.</p>

Educative Mentoring: Challenges and Enablers of Implementation in an Intermediate School Context

<p>An effective mentoring programme has a positive effect on the quality of teaching, student achievement, the retention of trained teachers and the teaching profession as a whole and the importance of mentoring beginning teachers cannot be overstated. Recently, there has been a shift in thinking on the most effective way to mentor beginning teachers. This shift has been away from a mentoring approach that only provides support and guidance towards educative mentoring which both challenges and transforms teaching practice and is based on a co-constructed learning relationship. In 2012, the New Zealand Teachers Council introduced guidelines into schools to assist mentor teachers in the educative mentoring of beginning teachers. The purpose of this case study was to examine how effectively one intermediate school was implementing these guidelines, identify challenges involved in the implementation process and describe the conditions necessary to support effective, educative mentoring. To answer the research questions, data was collected through an on-line survey, focus groups and an interview. The findings indicated that while both the mentors and beginning teachers felt that the guidelines were being implemented, neither group believed the mentoring process at the school was particularly effective. The biggest challenge to the implementation of the guidelines was differing perceptions of the purpose and potential of a mentoring programme. The beginning teachers, mentor teachers and principal all held differing views on the purpose of mentoring, leading to other challenges including the lack of clarity around procedures and expectations and tension between assistance and assessment.</p>

Educative Mentoring: Challenges and Enablers of Implementation in an Intermediate School Context

<p>An effective mentoring programme has a positive effect on the quality of teaching, student achievement, the retention of trained teachers and the teaching profession as a whole and the importance of mentoring beginning teachers cannot be overstated. Recently, there has been a shift in thinking on the most effective way to mentor beginning teachers. This shift has been away from a mentoring approach that only provides support and guidance towards educative mentoring which both challenges and transforms teaching practice and is based on a co-constructed learning relationship. In 2012, the New Zealand Teachers Council introduced guidelines into schools to assist mentor teachers in the educative mentoring of beginning teachers. The purpose of this case study was to examine how effectively one intermediate school was implementing these guidelines, identify challenges involved in the implementation process and describe the conditions necessary to support effective, educative mentoring. To answer the research questions, data was collected through an on-line survey, focus groups and an interview. The findings indicated that while both the mentors and beginning teachers felt that the guidelines were being implemented, neither group believed the mentoring process at the school was particularly effective. The biggest challenge to the implementation of the guidelines was differing perceptions of the purpose and potential of a mentoring programme. The beginning teachers, mentor teachers and principal all held differing views on the purpose of mentoring, leading to other challenges including the lack of clarity around procedures and expectations and tension between assistance and assessment.</p>

Historians, Archivists, and Museum Educators as Teacher Educators: Mentoring Preservice History Teachers at Cultural Institutes

A relatively new phenomenon in teacher education involves preservice history teachers conducting fieldwork in museums, archives, and other cultural institutes. However, researchers have yet to generate understandings supported by empirical observations of the inner workings of such fieldwork experiences. Using interviews, observations, and artifacts, this article analyzes the pedagogies historians, archivists, and museum educators use when adopting the role of teacher educators. Findings offer possibilities for a collaborative and site-based structure of teacher education, running contrary to traditional models. Important to the development of preservice history teachers, mentors at cultural institutes conceptualize their work through an inquiry lens, growing intuitively out of their work as disciplinary experts. In addition, educative mentoring, while typically conceived of as a classroom-based method, was observed in practice at cultural institutes. This article concludes by offering suggestions for applying principles from this model to existing preservice teacher education programs.

Noticing and Wondering: A Language Structure to Support Mentoring Conversations

Teachers and mathematics teacher education scholars have identified field experiences and quality mentoring as influential components of math teacher preparation and development. Yet, quality mentoring is a complex and demanding practice. Providing educative feedback to novices, particularly that which encourages reflection versus evaluation, can be challenging work for mentors. To study the potential of an intervention for providing professional development for mentors, I worked with pairs of mentors and prospective teachers (PSTs) offering Smith's (2009) noticing and wondering language as a way of structuring mentoring conversations that maintain both descriptive and interpretive analytic stances. Analysis of before and after conversations provided evidence of how mentor-PST pairs adopted noticing and wondering language, and in particular illuminated the ways in which the language structure might support interpretive mentoring conversations for studying teaching. The results suggest that mathematics teacher educators may want to consider what makes wondering challenging work and how to best support wondering in educative mentoring conversations.