Mentoring in one's own classroom: An exploratory study of contexts
TL;DR: The authors conducted an eighteen month ethnographic study of mentoring in two primary classrooms and found that the contexts of the mentoring structured the student teachers' experience and that the mentors' practices resembled their teaching practices.
About: This article is published in Teaching and Teacher Education.The article was published on 1997-02-01. It has received 64 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Coaching & Student teaching.
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TL;DR: The authors analyzes literature on mentored learning to teach in ways consistent with the standards reform movement and suggests that although reformers encourage mentoring for standards-based teaching, the assumptions underlying mentoring programs are often focused not on standards but on emotional and technical support.
Abstract: This article analyzes literature on mentored learning to teach in ways consistent with the standards reform movement. It suggests that although reformers encourage mentoring for standards-based teaching, the assumptions underlying mentoring programs are often focused not on standards but on emotional and technical support. Mentoring practices are consistent with program assumptions rather than with the assumptions underlying standards-based teaching. Mentoring practices promote novices’ retention but may not support their learning to teach. Although mentoring practices alone cannot be expected to reform teaching, case studies can illustrate practices for novices learning to teach in reform-minded ways. We argue that policymakers need to find effective ways to educate mentoring program developers and that mentors and researchers need to explore the content and process of reform-minded mentoring.
600 citations
Cites methods from "Mentoring in one's own classroom: A..."
...…of videotapes of student teachers’ practices and audiotapes of coaching conversations with their mentors from an 18-month ethnographic study of mentoring in two elementary school classrooms, Martin (1997) suggested that the contexts of teaching and mentoring shaped mentors’ mentoring practices....
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TL;DR: In this article, a case study is constructed of a secondary school teacher's struggle to move beyond her identity as a teacher to assume a mentor's identity in her year-long work with two English-teaching interns.
276 citations
Cites background from "Mentoring in one's own classroom: A..."
...Lacking these may be one reason that, as Martin (1997) has argued, mentor practices frequently resemble teaching practices: Teachers do what they know and mentor as they teach....
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...Lacking these may be one reason that, as Martin (1997) has argued, mentor practices frequently resemble teaching practices: Teachers do what they know and mentor as they teach....
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TL;DR: A review of the literature relevant to an examination of the nature of these interactions between mentor and student teacher can be found in this article, with a focus on the mentoring interactions between teachers and students.
Abstract: Mentoring in the preparation and education of teachers is of interest and concern in many countries. In the USA, mentoring plays an important role in the inservice education of teachers (Little, 1992). In other countries, including England and Australia, the time that preservice or student teachers spend in schools on initial teacher education (ITE) courses has increased in recent years (Department for Education, 1992; Tisher, 1995) accompanied by necessary redistribution of responsibility and resources from higher education institutions (HEIs) to school. Schools and mentors are increasingly equal partners with the university in the preparation of new teachers. Some have greeted the shift with unreserved enthusiasm: It offer(s) the opportunity for a quantum increase in the power and effectiveness of ITT (initial teacher training) (Tomlinson, 1995, p. 2). Others have responded with alarm, warning that mentoring may become simply a label for a new bureaucracy of teacher training (Smith & Alfrod, 1993, p. 104). The mentoring literature illuminates the roots of both the enthusiasm and the alarm. The inadequacy of theory-practice models of teacher education (Goodlad, 1990) and the increased adoption of reflective practice approaches to teacher education (Schon, 1987) concentrate attention on the work of schools in ITE. For some, the moves toward school-based training are the overdue empowerment of teachers as equal partners in the education of student teachers (Wilkin, 1992b). Recent research into how student teachers learn to teach has increasingly emphasized the need for student teachers to recognize previously constructed images and beliefs about teaching and examine the impact of these history-based personal beliefs on their professional development (Calderhead & Robson, 1991; Cole & Knowles, 1993; Holt-Reynolds, 1992; Johnson, 1993; Watzlawick, 1978). This emphasis casts doubt on the applicability of traditional academic HEI environments as conducive settings for learning to teach (Elliott & Calderhead, 1993). Much literature on mentoring is either descriptive or declarative with little analysis or theoretical underpinning to the study and practice of mentoring. This paucity is cause for concern. The reasons for the largely pragmatic approaches characterizing much of the current literature are easily understood. For example, the speed with which legislation in England (Department for Education, 1992) had to be implemented led to an almost inevitable emphasis on the management of the transition. This emphasis was exacerbated by implementation happening within schools, institutions where the prevailing culture tends to be one where doing is given greater value than thinking (Fenstermacher, 1992; Richert, 1994). In consequence, several studies provide overviews of mentoring and its management (McIntyre, Hagger & Burn, 1994; Wilkin, 1992b), but few examine or analyze the intricacies of mentoring interactions (Glickman & Bey, 1990), how mentoring relationships operate between the individuals involved, or how and what student teachers learn from their mentoring experiences. In this article, I review literature relevant to an examination of the nature of these interactions between mentor and student teacher. This review has limited scope and does not represent a full or comprehensive review of all mentoring literature. I do not consider many important issues, such as mentors' pedagogical and subject knowledge, the impact of institutional cultures, and the management and implementation of mentoring programs. Approaches to Examining the Literature on Mentoring Four distinct but related approaches characterize research into mentoring. First, some writers have examined the particular expertise of the different personnel involved in the training of student teachers and developed distinct roles and responsibilities for those involved. Second, other writers have taken a functional approach, identifying the stages of development that student teachers go through and developing corresponding models of mentoring designed to meet the mentee's current needs. …
247 citations
TL;DR: In this article, two models of student teaching were compared: the traditional model of placing one student teacher with a mentor teacher and a peer teaching model, where two student teachers worked with one mentor.
160 citations
TL;DR: This article found that teachers in partner-placements felt better supported and were able to engage in greater instructional risks within the classroom, and children in classrooms where partners were placed were reportedly better served.
Abstract: Three types of data were gathered on a partnership and a single-placement model of early field experience. Data came from mentor and preservice teacher interviews, preservice teacher time logs, and transcripts of planning sessions. Although all mentors and preservice teachers found value in their experience, data indicate that those who participated in partnership placements had a very different experience. Preservice teachers in partner-placements felt better supported and were able to engage in greater instructional risks within the classroom. Children in classrooms where partners were placed were reportedly better served. Mentors in partnership placements were more flexible in planning with preservice teachers and appeared to be more trusting. The authors conclude that partnership placement holds promise for providing richer, more interesting, and more educative early field experience for elementary preservice teachers than traditional practice allows.
151 citations
Cites background from "Mentoring in one's own classroom: A..."
...Although patterns vary depending on how the mentor teacher role is understood (Hawkey, 1998), and recognizing that mentoring appears to be highly idiosyncratic (Martin, 1997), the message is still clear: In conferences, mentor teachers dominate the discourse; they give directions, tell stories, and are prescriptive....
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...…vary depending on how the mentor teacher role is understood (Hawkey, 1998), and recognizing that mentoring appears to be highly idiosyncratic (Martin, 1997), the message is still clear: In conferences, mentor teachers dominate the discourse; they give directions, tell stories, and are…...
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References
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Book•
01 Jan 1991
TL;DR: This work has shown that legitimate peripheral participation in communities of practice is not confined to midwives, tailors, quartermasters, butchers, non-drinking alcoholics and the like.
Abstract: In this important theoretical treatist, Jean Lave, anthropologist, and Etienne Wenger, computer scientist, push forward the notion of situated learning - that learning is fundamentally a social process. The authors maintain that learning viewed as situated activity has as its central defining characteristic a process they call legitimate peripheral participation (LPP). Learners participate in communities of practitioners, moving toward full participation in the sociocultural practices of a community. LPP provides a way to speak about crucial relations between newcomers and old-timers and about their activities, identities, artefacts, knowledge and practice. The communities discussed in the book are midwives, tailors, quartermasters, butchers, and recovering alcoholics, however, the process by which participants in those communities learn can be generalised to other social groups.
43,846 citations
22,082 citations
21,313 citations
TL;DR: Collins, Brown, and Newman as mentioned in this paper argue that knowledge is situated, being in part a product of the activity, context, and culture in which it is developed and used, and propose cognitive apprenticeship as an alternative to conventional practices.
Abstract: Many teaching practices implicitly assume that conceptual knowledge can be abstracted from the situations in which it is learned and used. This article argues that this assumption inevitably limits the effectiveness of such practices. Drawing on recent research into cognition as it is manifest in everyday activity, the authors argue that knowledge is situated, being in part a product of the activity, context, and culture in which it is developed and used. They discuss how this view of knowledge affects our understanding of learning, and they note that conventional schooling too often ignores the influence of school culture on what is learned in school. As an alternative to conventional practices, they propose cognitive apprenticeship (Collins, Brown, & Newman, in press), which honors the situated nature of knowledge. They examine two examples of mathematics instruction that exhibit certain key features of this approach to teaching.
14,006 citations
01 Jan 2005
TL;DR: Lee S. Shulman as mentioned in this paper builds his foundation for teachi ng reform on an idea of teaching that emphasizes comprension and reasoning, transformation and reflection, and argues that this emphasis is justified by the resoluteness with which research and policy have so blatantly ignored those aspects of teaching in the past.
Abstract: Lee S. Shulman builds his foundation for teachi ng reform on an idea of teaching that emphasizes comprension and reasoning, transformation and reflection. "This emphasis is justified" he writes, "by the resoluteness with which research and policy have so blatantly ignored those aspects of teaching in the past". To articulate and justify this conception, Shulman responds to four questions: What are the sources of the knowledge base for teaching? In what terms can these sources be conceptualized? What are the processes of pedagogical reasoning and action? And What are the implications for teaching policy and educational reform? The answers -informed by philosophy, psychology, and a growing body of casework based on young and experienced practitioners- go far beyond current reform assumptions and initiatives. The outcome for educational practitioners, scholars,
13,211 citations