This presentation reports from a study of mentoring conversations in student teachers’ field work within initial teacher education (ITE). We ask what affordances can be depicted when studying mentor conversations in field work. What is at the core in such conversations and how do the mentors and students talk about the topics in question? What do student teachers possibly learn by taking part in such conversations?

Mentoring has a long tradition in Norwegian teacher training and is assumed to contribute to students’ professional development and to support them in their teaching during the periods of field work. As theoretical concepts for the analyses of such conversations, affordances (Gibson 1979, Wertsch 1998) mediating tools (Vygotsky 1999, Wertsch 1998, Säljö 2000) and scaffolding (Stone 1998, Säljö 2000) are introduced.

Affordances point to every organism as both a perceiver of and a behaver in the environment. In activity theory mediation is a central term as it is assumed that human beings don’t have direct access to the environment, but draws on mediating tools both to act on and in the world. For Vygotsky such tools were of two kinds; instrumental and psychological tools. The instrumental tools refer to observable concrete objects like pencils and spades that are useful in changing nature into culture. Psychological tools refer to the inner mental function of human beings and development of thought. Here the use of sign systems, and especially language, is seen as the most important tool. Both instrumental and psychological tools are seen as meditational means and products of sociocultural evolution (Säljö 1998). Tools serve as meditational means, and we think with and through them. Scaffolding is connected to the mediating tools that human beings make use of, and the relation between people in professional talks (Stone 1998), like in mentorship. A sociocultural interpretation presupposes that one conceives of language and other sign systems in terms of they are part of and mediate human action. It becomes possible to understand how individuals expand their intellectual repertoires and practical skills through participation in collective activities by analyzing learning in terms of the roles and responsibilities given to people within situated activity systems.

Gibson, J. (1979). The Ecological Approach to Visual perception, Boston : Houghton Mifflin Säljö, R. (1998) Thinking with and through artifacts. The role of psychological tools and physical artifacts in human learning and cognition. In Dorothy Faulkner, Karen Littleton and Martin Woodhead (ed.) Learning relationships in the classroom. London: Routledge Säljö, R. (2001) Læring i Praksis. Oslo: J.W.Cappelens forlag a.s Stone, C.A. (1998) What is missing in the metaphor of scaffolding? I D. Faulkner, K. Littleton og M. Rivera, H.H. and Tharp, R.G. (2004) Sociocultural Activity Settings in the Classroom: A study of a Classroom Observation System. In Waxman, H.C., Tharp, R.G., Soleste Hilberg, R. Observational Research in U.S. Classrooms Cambridge University press Vygotsky, Lev S. 1999. Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Woodhead (red.) Learning relationships in the classroom. London and New York: Routledge Wertsch, J. V. (1998): Mind as Action, New York, Oxford University Press