Mentoring Practice: Teacher development through scaffolding (Randall &Thornton, 2003b), collaboration (Fanselow , 1988; Richards & Lockhart, 1992; Sheal, 1989) and reflection (Farrell, 2013).
Approaches to Mentoring
A novice teacher’s first experiences in the teaching profession can be significantly challenging and overwhelming. Indeed, retention of novice teachers is an issue in most institutions, and mentoring novice teachers has been incorporated to facilitate the process of entering the working force for those new to teaching (Hobson, Ashby, Malderez, & Tomlinson, 2009). Mentoring practices have been proposed as an approach to support the transition from student-teacher to practicing teacher (Farrell, 2009).
But, what is the right approach to mentoring?
Exploring beliefs and preconceived notions about mentoring and supervision... Consider the following questions:
Should mentoring be collaborative or directive (Gebhard, 1984) ?
Should mentoring be bureaucratic or democratic (Sullivan & Glanz, 2000) ?
This quiz may help guide your reflection...
Some Collaborative, Democratic Approaches to Mentoring
Structured Feedback
Bowers (1987) proposes a meticulous approach to counselling and training that provides relevant and structured feedback to the teacher, with clear professional development aims. The first phase in this approach is diagnosis, which involves hearing, observing, recording, analyzing, considering and evaluating (HORACE) the context of the teacher and the teaching. The next phase is one of consultation, which includes acknowledgement of what cannot be changed, focused and concise feedback towards what can be changed, as well as identification of areas both counselor and teacher feel need to be worked on. The final phase is remediation, a training phase where the teacher tries new approaches, the counsellor collaborates and models by teaching previously agreed upon and selected materials, and provides tailored teacher training.
Peer Collaboration
Fanselow (1988) explores a collaborative approach to supervision and observation with the main argument that there should be no help involved in the concept of supervision or observation. Fanselow suggests that teachers learn from each other, and that supervision should be about peer collaboration. Peer collaboration is an impactful and meaningful way to achieve professional development in both novice and experienced or expert teachers. The approach is one of self-reflective professional development which involves using observation of others as a tool to learn and reflect upon one’s own teaching practices. Richards and Lockhart (1992) and Sheal (1989) advocate for peer observation as a tool for professional development in teachers. Richards and Lockhart argue that the focus of observation should be to collect information on specific teaching behaviours and procedures that should be established before entering the observation exercise. Richards and Lockhart (1992) discuss and present in detail how peer observation can be functionally implemented so that it leads to professional development. Emphasis is placed on observation not being an evaluation exercise. Sheal (1989) argues for the importance of structured classroom observation and describes a three-part workshop that trained participants on effective observation. Both Richards and Lockhart and Sheal emphasize an observation structure which includes both observing and observed teachers discussing beforehand what will be observed, observing that specifically, with a structure (i.e. a form) and then discussing what was observed together afterward.
Scaffolding
Randall and Thornton (2003b) argue that advisors and teachers should communicate and interact such that the teacher is scaffolded into an independent and autonomous self-reflexive practice. The advisor is the catalyst leading to a process in the teacher that leads towards growth and change. Mentoring can be teacher-directed; the mentor’s role is to facilitate the teacher’s growth. A mentor’s role does not necessarily involve supervision, imposition of knowledge or control of the manner in which knowledge is acquired. On the contrary, the teacher’s knowledge about their teaching context is often greater than that of the mentor who is an outsider in the teacher’s class: an observer. A teacher-directed approach to supervision can lead to enriching growth and professional development due to its being directly relevant to both the teacher’s abilities and context.
Critical Incident Analysis and Catalytic Intervention
Farrell (2013) proposes a narrative reflexive practice used as a tool for teacher empowerment and professional development. Critical incidents are explored through self-reflexive story-telling leading to constructive criticism. Critical incidents are events, situations or moments that lead to important insights in teachers. Critical incident analysis may be an interesting starting point in a mentor-mentee interaction to establish a collaborative approach to mentoring by providing an opportunity to “break the ice”, establish a connection, and tell stories to establish a collaborative rapport. Moving forward in the collaboration with a mentee, a catalytic intervention approach may be adopted. In the catalytic approach, Randall and Thornton (2003b) suggest that the role of the mentor is that of an advisor who asks critical questions, thus scaffolding the teacher in a Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). The role of the advisor includes identifying critical incidents and exploring them with the teacher. The advisor as a catalytic interventionist can adopt different approaches depending on the needs of the teacher, such as following the direction the teacher establishes, consulting through eliciting the direction the teacher wants to work towards, or in a more assertive role lead the teacher in the direction they feel is important through asking direct questions about the issues they feel are important to explore. This approach may allow for flexibility to explore a range of advisor-directed to teacher-directed approaches.
References
Bowers, R. (1987). Developing perceptions of the classroom: Observation and evaluation, training and
counselling. Language teacher education: An integrated programme for ELT teacher training, 138.
Fanselow, J. F. (1988). “Let's see”: contrasting conversations about teaching. Tesol Quarterly, 22(1), 113-130.
Farrell, T. S. (2009). The novice teacher experience. The Cambridge guide to second language teacher
education, 182-189.
Gebhard, J. G. (1984). Models of supervision: Choices. Tesol Quarterly, 18(3), 501–514.
Hobson, A. J., Ashby, P., Malderez, A., & Tomlinson, P. D. (2009). Mentoring beginning teachers: What we know
and what we don't. Teaching and teacher education, 25(1), 207–216.
Randall, M., & Thornton, B. (2003b). 9 Ways of talking to teachers 4: towards critical selfawareness. Advising and
supporting teachers (pp. 120-132). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Richards, J., & Lockhart, C. (1991). Teacher development through peer observation. Tesol Journal, 1(2), 7–10.
Sheal, P. (1989). Classroom observation: training the observers. English Language Teaching Journal, 43(2), 92-
104.
Sullivan, S. & Glanz, J (2000). Supervision that improves teaching and learning: Strategies and techniques.
Corwin Press.