In the U.S., current imperatives for teacher education reform uniformly call for teacher preparation that is embedded in schools. Inherent in these exhortations is the assumption that additional time in K-12 classrooms will improve teacher quality. Amidst these calls for more “clinically-rich” practice stands the mentor teacher (also termed cooperating teacher or school-based teacher educator)—whose responsibility it is to guide novices as they hone their craft. These calls shift the fulcrum of preparation from the university to the classroom, giving the mentor teacher key responsibility for new teachers’ development. Given the increasingly substantive part mentor teachers now/will play in the preparation of novice teachers, it becomes important to know how they define effective mentoring, since it is through their mentoring of student teachers that they enact their understandings of effective teaching. This paper presents a study of mentor teachers who work with preservice teachers immersed in an urban teacher residency program. Mentor teachers were asked to describe moments of effective mentoring, as well as their own strengths, weaknesses, and goals as mentors. Implicit in mentor teachers’ descriptions of effective mentoring were their perspectives on effective teaching. We use Feiman-Nemser’s (2001) notion of “educative mentoring” as one conceptual lens for our research. ‘Educative mentoring rests on an explicit vision of good teaching and an understanding of teacher learning’ and articulates ‘eight different moves’ or strategies (Feiman-Nemser, 2001, pp. 17, 19) enacted by a masterful mentor teacher. We also rely on Cochran-Smith and Lytle’s (1999) theorizing of knowledges for, in, and of practice to help us think about effective teaching from the perspective of mentor teachers. These conceptions each offers different ideas about what teachers need to learn, and how and where that learning occurs. Cochran-Smith and Lytle’s work on the relationship between knowledges and practice connect to Feiman-Nemser’s notions of mentoring, as educative mentors actively think about the relationships between knowledge and practice through their work with novice teachers. Our examination of mentor teachers’ perspectives offered much insight into the challenges of clinically rich teacher preparation, raising several dilemmas that should be considered amidst the press for teacher preparation that is deeply rooted in field practice.

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