Abstract Full Paper
Faculty Technology Mentoring Programs: The Major Trends in the Literature
Rational:
This article presented me with an opportunity to pull together different practical case
studies on faculty technology mentoring programs and to identify major trends in this
particular area. By summarizing different models of mentoring programs in various
educational settings and identifying common themes among them, I provided a
framework that offers key elements in designing and implementing successful mentoring
programs. I am hopeful that the insights I’ve gained over the process of compiling,
categorizing, summarizing, and analyzing these cases will translate into some valuable
knowledge contribution to the field of faculty development.
Departmental Competency Areas Met: 1, 2, 3, 4
Reflection:
In retrospect, this literature review article on technology mentoring programs national
wide was a landmark in my research career. I dug into a big pile of papers related to oneon-one faculty technology mentoring programs from K-12 environments to higher
education institutions, focusing on identifying similar themes or characteristics of
effective technology mentoring programs. Before working on this literature review paper,
I had been involved with the technology mentoring program by taking the course entitled
Technology in Teacher Education (CI 610) as a student mentor to two faculty members.
This paper was both an expansion and extension of my previous mentoring experience
that stretched over in different time and space zones in search for common themes among
the mentoring programs.
I started to work on this paper as an independent study with Dr. Ann Thompson, who is
also my major professor, in Fall 2001. My goal was to present this paper at Society for
Information and Teacher Education (SITE) 2002 and then ultimately to submit for journal
publication. It was also the first time that I worked on a proposal submission for
conference presentation. My first draft of the proposal made several mistakes due to my
lack of knowledge of what a good proposal should include. The main mistake was that I
failed to address the goal and significance of the paper. With Dr. Ann Thompson’s
guidance and Dr. Denise Schmidt’s editing suggestions, I finished my first proposal to be
submitted to SITE 2002. It was accepted. On March 20, 2003, I made my first
international conference presentation (see PowerPoint slides). It was at that moment that I
became more determined than ever in pursuing my career in academia because of a newly
found scholarly community which I could correspond with and claim a sense of
belonging.
This conference presentation experience also allowed me to network with people who
have been engaged in other mentoring programs like the well-known Gen Y project.
Later, I began on developed a website on faculty technology mentoring program with a
focus on the Iowa Sate University model. However, the purpose of this website is not
confined to document and archive artifacts in the ISU’s mentoring program. The website
would also serve as a resource to related programs and research findings in the faculty
mentoring program as an approach of faculty development.
As I become more and more engrossed in the research and scholarly work process, I have
found the need to provide a theoretical framework to the mentoring model. I have tried
using Activity Theory to lay out how tool-mediated and goal oriented features of Activity
Theory contributes to a successful mentoring program. Future work in adopting some
change theories in explaining how the faculty mentoring program has an impact on the
systematic change in teacher education is an area needs further exploration.
To sum up, this paper contributes a great deal to forming and articulating my scholarship
focus in the field of faculty development. It serves as a stepping stone to elevate me to
where I am and what I will be in the future.