Comparative Analysis of Mentoring Experiences in Estonia, Finland and Sweden

Author(s):

Hannu Johannes JokinenÅsa MorbergValdek Rohtma Katrin Poom-Valickis

Conference:

ECER 2008

Network:

10. Teacher Education Research

Format:

Paper

Session Information

10 SES 05D, Research on Pedagogical Approaches in Teacher Education

Paper Session

Time:

2008-09-11

08:30-10:00

Room:

A1 332

Chair:

Maria Pacheco Figueiredo

Contribution

Mentoring is a common way to support newly qualified teachers’ lifelong learning and professional development ((Bennetts 2001). Induction phase and mentoring has to be integrated with initial teacher education, the continuum of professional development, and continuous school development. (Fransson &Morberg, 2001; Jokinen & Välijärvi 2003; Commission of the European Communities, 2007). Schools’ professional operations and activities can be influenced only by developing the capacity of the teaching staff and its every member, reflected in school activities as new principles of action, internal assessments and various leadership roles (Jokinen & Välijärvi 2003). Our main focus in this paper is to analyze mentoring and mentoring programs as a tool of supporting NQTs’ professional development in Estonia, Finland and Sweden in different contextual environments. Earlier research and experiences have shown that the mentoring can be carried out in many different ways in supporting mentees and school communities (e.g. Feiman-Nemser et al. 1999; Feiman-Nemser 2001; Jokinen & Välijärvi 2006; Lindgren 2003a; Lindgren 2003 b; Lindgren, U 2006; Wang & Odell 2002.). This paper will concentrate on the comparative analysis on the main characteristics of mentoring as a tool of mentors’ and mentees’ professional development, as an important part of school development and on main issues considering arranging, implementing and the development of mentoring in future.

Method

The empirical data of this comparative analysis is based on the national mentoring program in Estonia and on experiments in Finland and Sweden. The Estonian data comes from the national induction program started in 2004/2005. In Finland the experiments bring together experiences from three mentoring projects: the Kokkola project, launched autumn 2003, Helsinki project 2002-06 and the project on the region of Jyväskylä launched on fall 2006 in the 12 municipalities. The Swedish data comes from the network of municipalities on the region of Gävle. It has been an opportunity to use national research results and reports of case studies. The data has collected by interviews, questionnaires and reflective journals. Comparative analysis has been made together with authors in several workshops during meetings of Newly Qualified Teachers in Northern Europe – Research and Development Network (NQTNE) from 2005 to 2008.

Expected Outcomes

The conclusions of the paper will focus on main differences in mentoring newly qualified teachers in Estonia, Finland and Sweden. As the outcomes of our comparative analysis we will concentrate in our presentation especially on mentoring as a part of an induction program, on as a tool of individual and school community development, on the education of mentors and on the strengths and weaknesses of mentoring process. And what would be main issues considering arranging, implementing and the development of mentoring in future.

References

Bennetts, C. (2001) ‘Lifelong learners: In their own words’, International Journal of Lifelong Education, 20 (4), 272–288. Bjerkholt, E., Eisenschmidt, E., Fransson, G., Hedegaard, E., Heikkinen, H., Jokinen, H., Klages, W., Morberg, Å. & Rothma, V. 2006. Co-operative partnership: Newly Qualified Teachers in the Northern Europe - Research and Development Network. A symposium in the Annual Conference of the Association for Teacher Education in Europe, Portoroz, Slovenia, October 23th 2006. Commission of the European Communities. 2007. Improving the Quality of Teacher Education. Communication from the Commission to the Council and the Europian Parliament. Brussels. Feiman-Nemser, S., Schwille, S. Carver, C. & Yusko, B. 1999. A conceptual review of Literature on new teacher induction. Michigan State University. NPEAT. Feiman-Nemser, S. (2001). Preparation to Practice: Designing a continuum to strengthen and sustain teaching. Teachers College Record 103 (6), 1013-1055. Fransson,G & Morberg, Å, (2004) Utveckling och utmaningar för nyblivna lärare. Lärarförbundets Första Steget, Lund: Studentlitteratur Fransson,G& Morberg,Å (2005) ”Framtidens lärare” Pedagogiska Magasinet 2005 Fransson, Göran & Morberg, Åsa. (Red) (2001): De första ljuva åren – lärares första tid i yrket. Lund: Studentlitteratur. Jokinen, H. & Välijärvi, J. 2003. Induction in Supporting Novice Teachers’ Professional Development. Paper presented at ECER Conference, Hamburg, 17-20 September 2003. Jokinen, H., Heikkinen, H.& Välijärvi J. 2006. Mentoring in Supporting Newly Qualified Teachers’ Professional Development: Individualism or Organisation Development. Paper in ATEE 2005 Conference web publication. http://www.atee2005.nl/publ/papers.htm. 219-222. Jokinen, H. & Välijärvi, J. 2006. Making mentoring a tool for supporting teachers’ professional development. In R. Jakku-Sihvonen & H. Niemi (Eds.) Research-based Teacher Education in Finland – Reflections by Finnish Teacher Educators. Finnish Educational Research Association. Turku: Painosalama Oy, 89 -101 Lindgren, U (2003a)Nya lärares upplevelser av arbetsplanering och mentorskap under ett år. Umeå Universitet: Institutionen för svenska och samhällsvetenskap Lindgren, U. (2003 b) Mentorskap för nyblivna lärare – behövs det och hur kan det i så fall organiseras? I Fransson, G, Morberg, Å, Nilsson,R, Schullerqvist, B (Red.) Didaktikens mångfald. Gävle: Högskolan i Gävle, Lärarutbildningens skriftserie Nr 1 Lindgren, U (2006) På väg mot en yrkesidentitet: Mentorskap som stöd för nyblivna lärares professionalsieringsprocess. Umeå universitet: Institutionen för svenska och samhällsvetenskap Morberg, Å m.fl (2001).”Anledning till handledning”. Artikeln är publicerad i Didaktisk tidskrift, Volym 11, nr 3-4, 2001, Göteborg: Göteborgs Universitet. Morberg, Å( 2002) Ett dilemma för lärarutbildning och lärare i Arfwedson,G (red) (2002) Mellan teori och praktik, Stockholm: HLS förlag Wang, J. & Odell, S. 2002. Mentored learning to teach and standards-based teaching reform: A critical review. Review of Educational Review, 7(3), 481-546.

Author Information

Hannu Johannes Jokinen

University of Jyväskylä

Intitute for Educational Research

Jyväskylä

Åsa Morberg

University of Gävle, Sweden

Valdek Rohtma

University of Tartu, Estonia

Katrin Poom-Valickis

Tallinn University, Estonia

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