Session Information
10 SES 03 C, Research on Teacher Induction and Early Career Teachers
Paper Session
Contribution
Although there is agreement on the importance of considering mentoring programs in helping novice teachers’ induction period, in Brazil there is no policy as in USA, Scotland and England and only few experiences about this kind of professional development initiative has been developed. One of them is the Online Mentoring Program of the Portal dos Professores (www.portaldosprofessores.ufscar.br) from Federal University of São Carlos, Brazil. It may be characterized as an online program that implies frequent communication between mentors and novice teachers on its own platform. Its goal is to assist novice K-4 teachers. Each novice teacher is assisted by a mentor (an experienced teacher) throughout the program. Because of its methodological approach, the adopted mentoring model aims at the novice teachers’ reflection on their own practices, bearing in mind adults’ learning characteristics and professional contexts as recounted by them. The 10 mentors participants are experienced schoolteachers that have little or no teaching educators practice and they participated of the elaboration of the mentorship program foundations, defining with the researchers its curriculum and characteristics. Thereby, the purpose of this research—of a constructive-collaborative nature—is to answer the following general questions: How experienced schoolteachers learn to be online mentors? What constitutes the knowledge base of these mentors? Its research goals are:
a) To describe how experienced teachers learn to be online mentors; and
b) To understand how the experienced schoolteachers’ knowledge base—as described by Shulman ( 1986, 1987)—may be developed when acting as mentors and researchers of their own practice in an online Mentoring Program.
Mentoring programs are increasingly common in state policy in USA and Europe and vary greatly in their design (Feiman-Nemser, 2001). The formal contact of pairs of new teachers with their veteran colleagues is currently one important strategy to address new teachers’ isolation, frustration, and failure and an important avenue for the professional development of inexperienced professionals and of those who work as mentors themselves (Sundli, 2007). It is also a challenging activity on account of a number of factors associated with the interactive processes between mentors and mentees: conflicting ideas and attitudes; lack of confidence; partial information; incompatible schedules; and communication difficulties.
This study considers that it is essential that the mentors and novice teachers should master a teaching knowledge base that, according to Shulman (1987), consists of a body of understandings, knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed by the teacher to be able to perform his duties. This base involves knowledge of different natures, all necessary and essential to the professional performance of teaching functions. This knowledge base is not fixed or immutable: it is continually changing. In addition, it is assumed that: (a) adult learning is more directed to the practical than the theoretical (Darling-Hammond, 1994; Marcelo Garcia, 1998; Schoenfeld, 1997); (b) reflection on pedagogical actions is a powerful strategy for continued teacher education, which should rooted in their experiences; and (c) teachers need mental space and time to develop professionally, which should be institutionally secured by public education policies (McDiarmid, 1995).
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Achinstein, B. & Athanases, S.Z- Focusing new teachers on diversity and equity: Toward a knowledge base for mentors Teaching and Teacher Education 21 843–862, 2005. Clandinin, D.J.; Conelly, F. M. Personal Experience Methods. In: Denzin, N. K; Lincoln, Y.S. (eds.) Handbook of Qualitative Research. Sage Publications: Thousand Oaks, CA, 1994, p. 413-425. Cole, L..; Knowles, J. G. (1993) Teacher Development partnership research: a focus on methods and issues. American Educational Research Journal, 30(3), 473-495. Darling-Hammond, L. (1994) Review of research in education. Washington: American Educational Research Association, 20. Feiman-Nemser, S. - From Preparation to Practice: Designing a Continuum to Strengthen and Sustain Teaching. Teachers College Record Volume 103 Number 6, 2001, p. 1013-1055 Freeman, D. To take them at their word: language data in the study of teachers' knowledge. In: Brizuela, B.M. et al. (eds.) Acts of Inquire in Qualitative Research. Harvard Educational Review. Reprint Series. n.34, 2000. Marcelo Garcia, C.(1998) Pesquisa sobre a formação de professores. Revista Brasileira de Educação, 9, 51-75. Mc Diarmid, G. W. Realizing new learning for all students: a framework for the professional development of Kentucky Teachers. National Center for Research on Teacher Learning, NCRTL, 1995. Schoenfeld, A H. (1997) Toward a theory of teaching-in-context. http://www.gse.berkeley.edu/Faculty/aschoenfeld/ TeachInContext/teaching-in-context.html Shulman, L.S. (1986) Those who understand: knowledge grow in teaching. Educational Researcher, 15(2), 4-14. Shulman, L.S. (1987) Knowledge and teaching: foundations of the new reform. Harvard Educational Review, 57(1), 1-22. Sundli, L. Mentoring: a new mantra for education? Teaching and Teacher Education, 23, 201-214, 2007.
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