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.     

Prerequisites for the successful group mentoring of first-year university students: a case study

In this article we present a case study on a group mentoring practice proven successful in earlier studies in terms of student self-regulation and collaboration. The purpose of our study was to uncover the factors behind the success by interviewing the mentor teachers. The findings showed that the group mentoring focused on four main themes: (a) promoting social relationships, (b) providing personal support, (c) providing study guidance, and (d) strengthening the agency of students. The findings suggest that the leading ethos of group mentoring was related to a humanistic approach to mentoring. However, successful mentoring also seemed to require both situated apprentice and critical constructivist perspectives in addition to the humanistic approach. It is concluded that the combination of multiple goals and contents in group mentoring is the main contributing factor behind the success of the mentoring model examined. Additionally, the teachers reported a variety of positive impacts of group mentoring on teachers’ work.     

Learning teacher-research-mentoring: stories from Turkey

The continuing developmental process of learning mentoring, specifically regarding supporting teacher research, has received relatively little attention in fields such as English language teaching, and this qualitative case study addresses the gap. It explores how three teacher-research-mentors, who were experienced classroom practitioners but novices in research-mentoring, grew into their new role while supporting teacher research projects in different English language higher education contexts in Turkey over a one-year period. Vignettes reveal that they became conscious of needing to provide psychological support to sustain teacher-researchers’ motivation from starting their research projects to completing them successfully, presenting findings and writing them up, and that they also developed in other roles, but as subject-specialists sharing knowledge about research to a lesser extent. Outcomes, in terms of the quality of research produced by the teacher-researchers in their contexts, appeared influenced by the different characteristics of their institutions and the degree of external support in the form of mentor-mentoring the teacher-research-mentors could access. Given the increasing interest around the world in teacher research as an empowering form of professional development, there is a growing need for teacher-research-mentors, and these findings, through shedding light on research-mentors’ developmental needs, might be of interest to teacher educators.     

Relational engagement: Proportional reasoning with bilingual Latino/a students

In this paper, we explored how engagement developed over time during a proportional reasoning unit for a group of US bilingual Latino/a students, with particular attention to aspects of social and cultural activity that supported students’ engagement. Our findings suggest that student mathematical engagement developed primarily as a relational process characterized by students’ social relations across time, their understandings about their relationships with mathematics, and the important relations emerging across proportional reasoning ideas.     

Trust-building in the mentoring of students of color

Trust is a vital component of mentoring, particularly when protégés are people of color who have experienced racism and discrimination. My findings are part of a larger study that culminated in the formulation of a theory of multicultural mentoring. Trust was found to be foundational for successful multicultural mentoring relationships. In my study of how mentors establish trust with graduate protégés of color, the following mentor practices were found to promote trust: listening, maintaining excellent communication, having a holistic understanding of the protégé, self-disclosing, using humor, being willing to discuss race and culture, acknowledging mistakes, and behaving with integrity. The mentors not only worked to establish interpersonal trust, they also attended to institutional and sociocultural trust concerns that impacted their protégés. Considerable time, skill, commitment, and effort are required for mentors to establish trust with protégés of color. Recommendations for the provision of mentor support are provided.     

Learning from successful skills development systems: Lessons from Australia

This article describes the main institutional features of Australia’s TVET sector, focussing particularly on the qualifications framework, how it relates to the labour market, and the role of industry. It also looks briefly at two current policy challenges for Australia. Seeking lessons for other countries in the Asia Pacific region, it discusses the importance of context, particularly the size and structure of the economy, and notes that TVET can be judged to be effective as an investment if it leads to employment and better-paying jobs.     

Into the academy: preparing and mentoring international doctoral students

This qualitative case study was an examination of a team-based faculty/mentor-led International Doctoral Student Support Group (IDSSG) designed specifically around issues in preparing and mentoring international doctoral students for careers in academia. Twelve participants were selected to participate in a support/focus group that met twice a month for an academic year to attend workshops and discuss their lives as doctoral students. The data set was comprised of two pre- and post-surveys and two in-depth pre- and post-interviews. Findings in the themes of international doctoral students’ graduate school experiences and the impact of the faculty-led support group are presented and discussed.

Mentoring as a learning tool: enhancing the effectiveness of an undergraduate business mentoring program

Mentoring can be used as a pedagogical alternative both to extend and augment the educational experience of business students. This article addresses a gap in the literature regarding the use and effectiveness of mentoring in undergraduate business education by examining improvements to an existing mentoring program. After reviewing the mentoring literature and identifying four critical elements for program success (matching, preparation, interaction and outcome assessment), the researchers used a cohort design and developed a survey to assess baseline participant satisfaction with these elements. Interventions were developed to enhance the mentoring program, and a second cohort allowed the authors to assess the benefits of these interventions. With statistically significant improvements in two out of four program elements (and a third showing marginally significant differences), the results demonstrate that the authors’ approach to evaluating and enhancing mentoring program effectiveness is useful in business education.     

Disabled and successful: education in the life stories of disabled high achievers

There has been much debate concerning the pros and cons of special and mainstream education for young people with a disability. This paper adds data to this debate by reporting the educational experiences of 20 high-achievers with congenital disabilities who live in the United Kingdom and were born between 1950 and 1970. It presents personal accounts of the high-achievers' perceptions of how their education, which was either purely in special schools, in mainstream schools or a combination of both, had influenced their transition to adulthood. While those who attended special school considered it to provide a supportive environment that permitted the cultivation of their personalities without the constraints of non-disabled barriers, many others thought it prevented them as disabled children from interacting with non-disabled peers, thus inhibiting social integration between the disabled and non-disabled world. This was the main perceived advantage of mainstream education although problems of physical access meant that some choices were out of reach. The findings highlight how both special and mainstream education can be compatible with career success of individual disabled people. The paper implies that a combination of the two systems may be needed to facilitate disabled students to develop psychologically, socially and cognitively at the rate of their non-disabled peers, and proposes that link schools and partial integration could contribute to the achievement of such goals.     

Gender and Bilingual Education: An Exploratory Study of the Academic Achievement of Latina and Latino English Learners

Although biliteracy plays a vital role in academic achievement, there has been little research on the unique needs of female and male English language learners. Becoming biliterate is a complex process, compounded by other variables such as 1st-language background, class, culture, and gender. Among these variables, gender has been the least examined and reported for English language learners in the United States. This exploratory quantitative study investigates the interplay between gender and biliteracy in a diverse urban school district. The quantitative data demonstrate gender variations across all years and grade levels and on both English and Spanish assessments.     

The relational selves of female graduate students during academic mentoring: from dialogue to transformation

This study, framed by social constructionism, retrospectively examines how faculty mentoring influenced the transformations of 10 female graduate students’ relational selves and their professional identities as qualitative researchers and scholars. Participants reported that effective mentorships often resulted in collaboration on research projects, as well as shared decision‐ and meaning‐making. Effective mentoring also led to the development of the students’ research skills while simultaneously constructing their professional and academic selves. These situated mentorships were shaped by the diverse values, expectations, and hopes that the participants associated with mentoring. Additionally, the local practices, power structures, and relationships at the department or university level influenced, and possibly discouraged, active communication and ongoing dialogue regarding the individuals’ experience of mentoring. Ultimately, participants described how their experiences of mentoring welcomed them into the scholarly community and ensured their professional competence as researchers and academics, which, in turn, transformed the students’ broader sense of self.     

Beyond the Hispanic/Latina/o Label: Counseling Students from Four Representative Nations

Clinicians working with students of Hispanic/Latina/o background may tend to categorize these students as Hispanic/Latino/a regardless of their or their ancestors’ country of origin. This article challenges the wisdom of using such broad terminology, because it masks considerable differences among Hispanic/Latina/o students, and proposes instead developing a more detailed knowledge about these students based on national differences. Due to space limitations, I will focus on four nationalities I am most familiar with: Chilean, Costa Rican, Mexican, and Spanish.     

Learning in the third age: drawing wisdom from reflective stories in community art education

Third-age learning is a subset of lifelong learning enjoyed by individuals in the stage of retirement, and often 60 years or older. Community art education (CAE) for learners in the third age commonly occurs in recreational settings, nursing homes, museums, libraries and places of worship. In addition to these informal learning sites, there are CAE programmes developed within postsecondary institutions that provide opportunities for artistic inquiry and instruction. In the following article, we share a case study involving third-age learners conducted in the 2014/2015 academic year. We begin by briefly describing an innovative CAE programme at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, and then discuss a specific initiative undertaken in cooperation with the University’s alumnae extended education programme. Our study explored large questions about motivation, curriculum and pedagogy, but also focused on major themes in lifelong learning and the individual stories of the participants. One participant, named Reto, is featured in this article, and with his collaboration we offer a co-constructed narrative alongside an analysis of themes including personal development and social inclusion. The insights gained through our study have potential broad applicability for the general area of university–community partnerships and for CAE for the growing third-age population.     

Building the mentoring relationship: humanism and the importance of storytelling between mentor and mentee

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we describe a mentoring program designed to help prepare high school seniors at Arizona State University Preparatory Academy for postsecondary education. Specifically, we address the usefulness of ‘humanistic mentoring,’ a form of mentoring that stresses the importance of reciprocity, mutuality, and empathy in the mentor/mentee relationship. We further describe how sharing stories was useful in developing such humanistic relationships. Based on etic-thematic coding of interviews from 13 of the mentees, a humanistic lens for mentoring and sharing personal stories is productive for both developing relationships and passing on knowledge.     

The role of mentoring relationships in the career development of successful deaf persons

A qualitative study of deaf graduates of Rochester Institute of Technology in New York State who became supervisors in primarily hearing work settings found that having a mentor was a primary and persistent element in their career success. In the deaf individual's early years, generally it was a family member or teacher who conveyed a belief in that individual's abilities, encouraged effort, and helped instill self-esteem and confidence. Parents were often their strongest advocates, and teachers were their advisors and facilitators. In the work setting, a supervisor or coworker often served as a mentor by coaching, advising, and teaching the individual what they needed to know to succeed on the job. In many ways, these "informal" mentors provided the foundation that enabled the deaf individual to break through what are often barriers to career success despite their skills and abilities. The various forms of mentorship and their impact on deaf college graduates are explored.     

Teaching with stories: Engaging students in critical self-reflection about policing and in/justice

In a course entitled “Policing and In/Justice” we elicited stories about police-citizen encounters through a narrative-based writing assignment. The assignment required students to identify competing perspectives of the story's events. Building on these perspectives, students engaged in assessment and evaluation of police decision-making. We suggest similar assignments may be relevant to courses with students anticipating or engaged in policing careers. The growing emphasis on community policing raises expectations that officers be creative problem-solvers, not just law enforcers. In addition to establishing the significance of the assignment, we explain how we accomplished it, and report on what students gained from it.     

Learning by teaching: undergraduate engineering students improving a community's response capability to an early warning system

This paper reports on a project in which students designed, constructed and tested a model of an existing early warning system with simulation of debris flow in a context of a landslide. Students also assessed rural community members’ knowledge of this system and subsequently taught them to estimate the time needed for evacuation of the community in the event of a landslide. Participants were four undergraduate students in a civil engineering programme at a university in Thailand, as well as nine community members and three external evaluators. Results illustrate project and problem-based, experiential learning and highlight the real-world applications and development of knowledge and of hard and soft skills. The discussion raises issues of scalability and feasibility for implementation of these types of projects in large undergraduate engineering classes.     

Building community in academic settings: the importance of flexibility in a structured mentoring program

Academic mentoring is increasingly being used by many universities as a tool to enhance the quality of research‐led teaching, promote cross‐faculty collaboration and encourage a mentoring culture and community. This article reports on a pilot project established to investigate the benefits of building flexibility into a structured academic mentoring program at the University of Sydney. Twenty‐six academics from the Faculty of Business and Economics and the Faculty of Education and Social Work participated in the program. The mentors ranged in position from lecturer to professor and the mentees from associate lecturer to senior lecturer. Flexible arrangements were shown to be important in a variety of ways, from the pairing of mentor with mentee, to focussing on issues of work survival and life balance, research outcomes and career advancement. The project highlighted the lower number of male academics involved in formal mentoring, which merits further exploration. All participants reported positive outcomes, although refinement of the pairing process was recommended. A variety of unanticipated outcomes was reported by mentees.