Paedeia Café: Bridging Pre-Service and In-Service Teacher Education through Peer Group Mentoring

Author(s):

Ulla Kiviniemi(presenting / submitting)Hanna Korhonen Päivi Tynjälä Hannu Heikkinen

Conference:

ECER 2016

Network:

01. Continuing Professional Development: Learning for Individuals, Leaders, and Organisations

Format:

Paper

Session Information

01 SES 08 A, Approaches to Mentoring

Paper Session

Time:

2016-08-25

09:00-10:30

Room:

OB-Theatre F

Chair:

Fiona Chambers

Contribution

The purpose of this presentation is to introduce empirical results of a project which aims at developing new practices for teacher induction by applying peer mentoring groups consisting of student teachers and experienced teachers. This action research project has been carried out in 2013-16 in the Department of Teacher Education of University of Jyväskylä, Finland, in collaboration with the European PAEDEIA project www.paedeia.net and the Finnish Network for Teacher Induction ‘Osaava Verme’ www.osaavaverme.fi/eng.

In Finland, peer-group mentoring (PGM) has been developed to support teachers in their early career. PGM groups meet typically once a month to discuss work-related issues and they are facilitated by a trained mentor. The model brings teachers together to reflect on their experiences as teachers. The approach leans on the constructivist view on learning and the activities are based on the principles of autonomy and equality. Also the fact that all actors in teaching and educational field can learn from each other is highlighted (Heikkinen, Jokinen, & Tynjälä 2012). Peer group mentoring stresses the importance of different forms of knowing. The group meetings combine formal, non-formal and informal knowing and tend to integrate various learning experiences which have been gained in different ways in work or in everyday life, hobbies and activities, as well as in teacher studies, including school experience in teaching practicums and elsewhere. (Heikkinen, Kiviniemi & Tynjälä 2011).

Paedeia Café–course offers a special version of peer-group mentoring; unlike in the ordinary PGM groups in Finland, student teachers in their final phase of initial teacher education are also involved in the groups. For student teachers, Paedeia Café is a seven credit elective course in the curriculum of Department of Teacher Education. The course has been piloted in 2013-14 and passed through the second time during 2014-15 within the European PAEDEIA project (Heikkinen, Swachten & Akyol 2015). Within the current academic year 2015-16 the pursuit is advancing, and a new version of the model has been introduced. This version of the course consists of two parts (1.) PGM group and (2.) a collaborative educational project. (1.) The peer mentoring group consists of 2-3 teachers and an equal number of teacher students who work in pairs in the collaborative educational projects. A trained mentor facilitates the meetings, and the groups meet 5-7 times during the academic year. (2.) The collaborative educational projects are designed and implemented by the aforementioned pairs of a student and a teacher. The educational project aims to respond to a genuine need for the teacher's daily work. In the educational projects, the aim is to integrate the theoretical knowledge with the practical know-how about teaching and learning. The participating school teachers are able to share their work, articulate their professional understanding and get support for wellbeing at work at the same time.

Method

The participating students (N=10) are master degree students of teacher education, being in the final phase of their studies. All of them have some experience about teaching, at least from the practicums included in pedagogical studies. The participating teachers (N=11) possess each several years of working experience as a primary teacher. Furthermore there are four mentors involved. This phase of the action research aims to reveal the diverse orientations and viewpoints of the students and school teachers participating in the action. The preceding study phase focused merely on the student experiences so now the emphasis is on teachers’ experiences; their dispositions towards themselves and others, propensities towards their knowledge, capabilities and values and inclination on professional working. Also the experiences of the mentors are of interest. The data of this study consists of interviews of all the participants: students, teachers and group mentors. Data acquisition is also supported with participant observation of the researcher. The informants are interviewed in divergent focus groups. Still additional data is available in form of students’ reflective reports, which are required for the course completion. The student reports will be gathered in May this year, after the peer group sessions. In the essay the students are asked to reflect their experiences about meetings and their growth to teacher profession. The empirical part is qualitative; the data will be examined through thematic qualitative analysis and analysed to reveal central features of professional learning and development in separate data sets of different actors. The resulting categories will be formulated on action and with insight on both personal and professional learning. The analysis will cover the manifest content as the vocalised professional learning, but however, the analysis pursues to obtain also the latent contents not explicitly mentioned as learning outcomes. To validate the grading a fellow researcher is drawn in discussion over the classification principles of the grading, and some of the classifications will be tested separately.

Expected Outcomes

This study is a part of the wider action research with the look, think and act cycles (Stringer 2007). The results of the study in question will expand and deepen the understanding of peer group processes and open guidelines to develop the described teacher education study course. The previous research cycles have shown us that the used approach is useful for the students’ professional development and transition to work but will benefit of further development. The students have been happy to get a chance to meet active in-service teachers and to discuss with them about the questions that are occupying their minds about teacher profession. However, even though the feedback about the course has been quite positive the analysis has revealed that the educational effect, powerfulness and complexity of the experiences of the students vary. (Korhonen 2015). Thus, at this action phase, more emphasis is placed on the integration of practical experiences with theoretical understanding to promote deeper learning for the students. Also the experiences of participating teachers have been so far a bit out of focus in the research project as well as the experiences of the mentors. This study reviews the experiences of these associate subsets and these results will give some boost to the developmental activities.

References

Heikkinen,H., Jokinen, H., Tynjälä, P. 2012. Teacher education and development as lifelong and lifewide learning. In H. Heikkinen, H. Jokinen & P. Tynjälä (Eds.) Peer-Group Mentoring for Teacher Development (pp. 3-30). London and New York: Routledge. Heikkinen, H., Kiviniemi, U. & Tynjälä, P. 2011. Integrative Pedagogy in Practicum: Meeting the Second Order Paradox of Teacher Education. In: M. Mattsson, T.V. Eilertsen and D. Rorrison (Eds.). A Practicum Turn in Teacher Education. Rotterdam: Sense, 91-112. Heikkinen, H., Swachten, L. & Akyol, H. (Eds.) 2015. Bridge over troubled water. New perspectives on teacher induction. Ankara: Pegem Akademi. Korhonen, H-M. 2015. Mingling in Paedeia Café – Student Teachers Experiences of Participating in Peer-Mentoring Groups of Pre-Service and In-Service Teachers. University of Jyvaskyla, Faculty of Education. Master’s Thesis in Education. Osaava Verme. Retrieved Jan 8th, 2016, from: http://www.osaavaverme.fi/eng Paedeia-net. Retrieved Jan 8th, 2016, from: http://www.paedeia.net/ Stringer, E. 2007. Action research, 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage.

Author Information

Ulla Kiviniemi (presenting / submitting)

University of Jyvaskyla

Department of Teacher Education

University of Jyvaskyla

Hanna Korhonen

University of Jyvaskyla, Finland

Päivi Tynjälä

University of Jyvaskyla, Finland

Hannu Heikkinen

University of Jyvaskyla, Finland

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