Maximizing the Potential of Mentoring: A Framework for Pre-service Teacher Education

Within the professional placement component of pre-service teacher education, mentoring has become a strategy that is used during the practical application of learning to teach. In this paper, we examine mentoring in the pre-service teacher education context by proposing a theoretically based framework for mentoring in this context. Firstly, the nature of mentoring along with mentoring in the context of pre-service teacher education is explored. A mentoring framework that has been developed to enable pre-service teacher educators to maximize the potential use of mentoring during the professional placement component of a pre-service teacher education degree is then proposed.     

Tensions of Reimagining Our Roles as Teacher Educators in a Third Space: Revisiting a Co/autoethnography Through a Faculty Lens

This co/autoethnography uses our lens as university faculty to examine how engaging in a year-long self-study with mentors nurtured a complicated third space where we could together begin to reimagine our roles as teacher educators. Two secondary faculty members and a doctoral assistant used co/autoethnography to revisit a collaborative self-study with mentors to better identify both the individual and programmatic complexities that arise when a third space is opened and we are invited to reinvent our perspectives and responsibilities as co-teacher educators. We ask two questions: What happens when faculty facilitate a third-space teacher education program with mentor teachers? How does this third space influence the teacher education practices in an urban teacher residency program? We present a series of tensions about our work together as teacher educators in the third space. They include professional into authentic relationships, authority into collaboration, collaborative agency into individual agency, and apprenticing to master teacher into apprenticing within a collective. Following findings about each tension, we discuss how we as faculty navigated each tension. Finally, we consider the implications of our work for all field-based teacher education programs.     

Development of Pre-Service Mathematics Teachers' Professional Knowledge and Identity in Working with Information and Communication Technology

This paper describes the workundertaken in a course in communication andinformation technology in a pre-service programfor secondary school mathematics teachers. Thiscourse aimed to help pre-service teachersdevelop a positive attitude regarding ICT anduse it confidently. It focused on theexploration of educational software and of theInternet's potential as a means of research andproduction of web sites. We discuss how thepre-service mathematics teachers evaluate theirwork concerning their commitment, difficultiesthey found, learning they identified, andpersonal relationship. We also analyse theeffects of the course on the development oftheir professional knowledge and identity.     

Building Beginning Teacher Resilience: Exploring the Relationship between Mentoring and Contextual Acceptance

ABSTRACT

Beginning teacher resilience has become a topic of international interest, as all school districts are invested in retaining talented teachers. This study builds on extant literature on the role of mentors by examining the influence of mentoring on beginning teachers’ perceptions of acceptance not only in the school but in the larger community through a sociocultural theoretical framework. Through an examination of 14 beginning teachers working in Hillside Public Schools, a district geographically considered rural, but with many indicators of an urban district, the article explores the question: how and to what extent does mentoring build beginning teacher resilience? Data reveal that beginning teachers show signs of developing resilience when they feel accepted by the school community. Mentoring, whether formal or informal, contributes to beginning teachers’ overall feelings of acceptance; such acceptance can help negate beginning teachers’ perceptions of unpreparedness for the demands of teaching in a high-needs school.     

Understanding Teacher Educators and Their Pre-Service Teachers through Multi-Media Case Studies of Practice

The challenges facing those who seek to prepare mathematics teachers are well established in the literature. Most of the research to date has focused on the perceptions and understandings of pre-service teachers, but not on the perceptions and understandings of teacher educators. In this study, we explore how four teacher educators understand their pre-service secondary teachers as the pre-service teachers attempt to make sense of teaching through the investigation of a multimedia case study of practice. We found that the teacher educators adopted two different implementation strategies: one strategy tended to be open-ended and exploratory; the other was more focused on the teacher educators' goals of anticipating student understanding and developing mathematical content knowledge for teaching. We also found that, in using the case study, teacher educators elicited pre-service teachers' thinking about the complexities of the teacher's role in small group work, about the value of explicitly revealing the teacher's reflections on the lessons, about the role of planning and preparation, and about the limits of pre-service teachers' abilities to understand and appreciate students' thinking and to extend lesson ideas. Both teacher educators and their pre-service teachers gained perspectives on the role of a teacher's mathematical content knowledge. These results imply that multimedia case studies of practice can serve as vehicles for revealing the knowledge and practice of teacher educators, as they engage in supporting the professional development of pre-service teachers.     

Overlooked aspects in the education of science professionals: Mentoring,ethics, and professional responsibility

Science as profession is generally defined narrowly as research. Science education as preparation for a profession in research is usually perceived as course work and laboratory training, even though the necessary knowledge and skills to pursue a research career are more extensive and diverse and are learned in one-on-one interaction with mentors. A complete education of science professionals includes the values, ethical standards and conventions of the discipline since they are fundamental to the profession. Mentoring and education in the responsible conduct and reporting of research and in the ethical dimensions of science are among the professional responsibilities of scientists and need to be discussed as part of science education. Moreover, science as an enterprise is much more than research and includes a number of other components, including science teaching, science journalism, and science policy. Each of these contributes to the nature of science and its role in society.     

美、加、澳初任教师专业标准及其对我国教师教育的启示

初任教师的专业标准实际上就是新教师的入职门槛,对教师教育具有重要的导向作用。各国的初任教师专业标准既有共同性,都注重专业知识、专业实践、专业责任、持续学习诸方面,又各有特色:美国《InTASC示范核心教学标准》重视发展性、加拿大安大略省《专业实践基础》重视实践性、《澳大利亚初任教师教育项目认证:标准和程序》则具体而易操作。以上三国的初任教师专业标准,对中国教师专业标准的制定以及职前教师教育培养目标的完善有积极的启示作用。     

The Effects of Modeling the Use of Technology with Pre-Service Teachers

Multiple case study was used to explore the impact of a modeling approach on pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy and willingness to integrate technology into their elementary lessons. Three primary investigators infused educational technology with a range of objectives into teacher education courses. A survey measured student comfort with and understanding of technology. Student products (lesson plans, websites, reflections) and interview responses were analyzed. The analysis revealed that participants gained knowledge and confidence with technology from instructor modeling, but there was a disparity between what pre-service teachers learned in the college classroom and what they experienced in the elementary classrooms. The implications for teacher education programs are discussed.     

实习教师专业发展深层次问题探析——兼论教师教育课程改革措施

实习教师是学习"做教师"的特殊群体,其专业发展中存在一些深层次问题。导致这些问题的原因有:实习学校教师专业精神的消极影响、实习教师的基础性素养不高、实习期间的有效工作量不足、"经验-模仿"的实习指导模式、实习教师实践时对理论的疏离。为此,需要全面改革职前教师教育课程,以促进实习教师的专业发展。     

Pre-service teachers’ greater power to act in the classroom: analysis of the circumstances for professional development

This case study analysed the circumstances during a one-year work placement in which a pre-service teacher showed professional development, with a focus on the impact of her interactions with various interlocutors. The study was conducted within the framework of the cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) and of activity theory with its methods for the clinical study of activity. The results showed intra-psychic conflicts. produced by interactions with trainers, peers, experienced colleagues, and students. These conflicts prompted the development of the pre-service teacher’s professional activity through the construction of new goals and new motives for action (development through sense), and the construction of new operations to reach these goals (development through efficiency). This study thus opens the way for creating training programmes that favour the development of teachers’ power to act. It provides a source for transforming traditional mentoring methods in teacher training.     

Moving beyond the reflectivity of post-lesson mentoring conferences in teacher education and creating learning/development opportunities for pre-service teachers

This longitudinal case study suggests ways to move beyond the reflective process usually associated with post-lesson mentoring conferences by describing the modalities likely to generate real learning/development opportunities. Based on cultural-historical activity theories (CHAT) and using methodologies from sociodiscursive interactionism, this study shows the joint construction of the meaning of teaching experience and proposes aids for developing the pre-service teacher’s power to act more effectively in the classroom. It provides a source for transforming the traditional mentoring methods, mediations and arrangements in teacher education. Proposals are made to further professionalise co-operating teachers at the new Graduate Schools of Teacher Education in France.     

教育见习课程对职前英语教师专业发展影响探究

本文采用定性研究的方法分析了英语专业师范生通过见习在教育教学认知与职业态度上的变化,从社会文化视角探讨了影响师范生变化的主要因素:校园环境以及与见习指导教师的互动。目的在于探究教育见习课程对职前英语教师专业发展的影响,为教育见习和职前教师培养摸索经验。     

PDS Collaboration as Third Space: An analysis of the quality of learning experiences in a PDS partnership

This article documents the self-study processes and findings of a collaborative research group that examined a professional development school (PDS) partnership. Drawing on the scholarship of self-study of teacher education practices and theoretical perspectives consistent with third space, we conceived our collaborative study group as a learning community aimed at uncovering the complexities of school–university partnerships while seeking new directions for an effective partnership. Data were collected from a variety of sources. Themes were developed based on some identified areas of focus consistent with the group's objectives, which included deciphering the state of our PDS collaboration, our preservice teachers' learning experiences, and insight into faculty as learners in professional relationship. The study revealed that experiential disparity existed within and among faculty and students in various PDS sites as a result of poor communication as well as divergent models of collaboration and philosophical goals between faculty and mentor teachers. Disparity in the learning experiences among the preservice teachers was attributed to the quality and scope of the partnership. This study resulted in better understanding of our roles as hybrid educators and recognition of mentor teachers as critical bridges in a PDS partnership.     

Professional experience: learning from the past to build the future

The title of the 2014 Australian Teacher Education Association (ATEA) conference was Teacher Education, An Audit: Building a platform for future engagement. One of the conference themes was Professional Experience: What works? Why? I seized upon this theme and the title of the conference as it afforded me an opportunity to do an audit of my research in professional experience over the last 25 years. This article presents this evidence base and the messages I have taken from this evidence. I have done this in the hope that, by collating some of the insights gained from the past and the present, it will help to “build a platform for future engagement” in professional experience. In preparing this article I was asked by the Editors to reflect also on how I developed my distinctive line of inquiry and expertise in relation to the practicum across an extended period. These reflections are included. I hope they will support university-based teacher educators in enhancing their satisfaction and achievements from working in this stimulating and provocative field of study.     

美国高校面向职前教师培养的专业伦理课程：发展历程、目标定位与实践路径

教师专业伦理是对教学所蕴含的价值理性与社会责任的澄清,也是对教学所承载的关系的界明,其在师德建设与教师专业发展中均扮演着重要的角色。20世纪80年代至今,美国高校教师教育项目中专业伦理课程的发展经历了萌芽期、拓展期和成熟期三个阶段。专业伦理课程目标主要聚焦于三大维度：精神之维,致力于教学伦理属性的澄明;知识之维,旨在提升职前教师的教学伦理理论品位;实践之维,旨在激发职前教师伦理自主的活力。在此基础上,探索出理论与实践互动、职前教师的持续反思以及批判性学习等卓有成效的课程实践路径。美国高校教师教育项目在独立式专业伦理课程的建设中积累了丰富的经验,对我国教师教育的课程改革具有如下借鉴意义：厘清课程现状,凸显专业伦理课程的重要地位;拓宽教学场域,促进理论知识与实践知识的融合转化;开展平等对话,提升职前教师的专业伦理自主权。     

Reimagining the role of mentor teachers in professional experience: moving to I as fellow teacher educator

New accreditation requirements for Australian initial teacher education programs require that universities and schools establish quality partnerships to ensure strong links between pre-service teachers’ university-based learning and school-based professional learning experiences. This paper focuses on the shifts of identity, thinking and practice that occurred for five school-based mentor teachers as they co-created new professional experience practices alongside university-based teacher educators in a Teaching Academies of Professional Practice (TAPP) project. Interview data was analysed through the theoretical framework of Dialogical Self Theory to examine how the repositioning of mentor teachers as fellow teacher educators allowed for expansion in the understanding and enactment of their role. The findings of this study suggest that partnerships between schools and universities can enhance learning opportunities for all participants when commitments are made to creating collaborative and dialogical spaces to support new approaches to teacher education.     

Theoretical Development,Factorial Validity,and Reliability of the Online Graduate Mentoring Scale

In this study, we sought to confirm the theoretical framework underlying an Online Graduate Mentoring Scale by establishing the scale’s factorial validity and reliability. Analysis of data received from doctoral students and alumni/ae of the College of Education of one large, online, accredited university reduced the initial theoretical framework from seven to six attributes, and resulted in a revision of the scale. Further research is needed to test the theoretical framework with other relevant populations and to refine the scale itself by reducing skewness and attaining item balance.     

职前幼儿教师专业认同建构路径:认知、行动与反思

职前幼儿教师要想成为一名真正的幼儿教师,需要在进入师范院校学习以及教育实践的过程中不断获得专业认同。研究以"专业认同"为主轴,描绘职前幼儿教师专业认同的建构路径,即职前幼儿教师在自我追寻的过程中,是如何认定自己是一名准幼儿教师的,未来想要成为一名怎样的幼儿教师,具体情境中是如何行动的,行动之后是如何进行的反思。研究将以个案的形式呈现职前幼儿教师专业认同的发展历程,从而梳理分析出职前幼儿教师专业认同的建构路径。     

Cross-purposes and crossed wires in education policymaking on equity: The Ontario experiences, 1990-1995

Between September 1990 and June 1995, the Canadian province of Ontario experienced its first ever social-democratic government. This paper examines the record, in terms of both process and policy, of that government on educational equity at the elementary and secondary school levels. It reviews the government's record in educational equity and measures that record against the agenda the party had set for itself before the 1990 election. The government's policy-making on educational equity offers a rarely equalled case study of cross-purposes, non-communication, ostensibly wilful ignorance and crossed wires. The results have gone far to discredit educational equity as a meaningful (rather than symbolic) educational goal in Ontario.