School Centres for Teaching
Excellence
Master Class: Mentoring
16 September 2011
Context for new directions in mentoring
pre-service teachers
•Victorian 2005 Parliamentary Inquiry into the Suitability of Pre-Service Teacher
Training conclusion: pre-service teachers need to be immersed in learning
environments to understand the various roles and responsibilities associated with
teaching
•Research indicates mentors have a key role in pre-service teacher training programs:
•Supervise graduated responsibilities of PSTs to build their skills and confidence
•Build the PST’s subject specific pedagogy skills and skills of lesson preparation
and class management
•Reflect on and talk about their practice, collaborate and commit to their own
improvement
•DEECD commitment to building a quality education workforce
•Bastow Institute of Educational Leadership: Mentoring for First Time Principals
•Teacher Mentor Support Program: Beginning Teachers
Mentors in SCTEs facilitate the integration of
theory and practice for pre-service teachers
•Model effective teaching practice
•Observe PST teaching and provide frequent, structured feedback
•Assist with planning and implementing group/ individual learning experiences
•Assist with implementing assessment strategies and using assessment data to
inform teaching
•Provide information about the school and specific learning needs of students
•Encourage participation in school events and integration into the wider school
community
•Document growth of PST and contribute to assessment of PST
Building and maintaining
quality mentor - mentee
relationships
A/Prof Bill Eckersley
Education
Victoria University
Mentoring!
I’d like you to meet my student teacher.
Roles of a mentor
•Individually, write down the roles
(responsibilities) you do as a mentor.
•In pairs, identify roles
(responsibilities) that are common to
both of you.
Developmental Mentoring
A developmental model suggests that the mentor
needs to be able to adopt the various roles of:
• coach
• counsellor
• guardian
• networker
• facilitator
• teacher
• guide
• protector
• supporter
• trouble-shooter
• scaffolder
• door opener
Mentoring
Always
Sometimes
Never
Listening with empathy
Using coaching behaviours Discipline
Sharing expertise
Using counselling
behaviours
Appraisal
Mutual Learning
Challenging assumptions
Assessment by a third
party
Professional friendship
Being a role model
Supervision
Developing insight through
reflection
Being a sounding board
Encouraging
Clutterbuck, 1998. Learning alliances: Tapping into talent
Mentoring!
First, you have to get their attention!
• Instead of being mentor driven, with the mentor taking full
responsibility for the mentee’s learning, the mentee learns
to share responsibility for the learning setting, priorities,
learning and resources and becomes increasingly selfdirected. When the learner is not ready to assume that
degree of responsibility, the mentor nurtures and develops
the mentee’s capacity for self-direction over the course of
the relationship. As the learning relationship evolves, the
mentoring partners share the accountability and
responsibility for achieving a mentee’s learning goals.
(Zachary, 2000)
• Dependent..............Independent............Interdependent
Mentoring!
Supervision
Stages of the mentoring
relationship:
• Getting
acquainted and sharing common
interests, values and goals
• Communicating expectations, agreeing on
procedures and establishing the patterns of
interaction
• Exploring needs and fulfilling objectives
• Redefining the relationship as a colleague,
peer and friend
Evolution of the
Mentoring
Relationship
R: Rapport-building is about developing trust and comfort with each other
D: Direction-setting is about setting goals for the relationship. Goals may
(usually will) evolve with the relationship
P: Progress-making is the most intensive stage, where experimentation and
learning proceed rapidly
M: Maturation when the relationship becomes more mutual in terms of
learning and support. The mentee gradually becomes more and more selfreliant
C: Close down is when the formal relationship ends. In most successful
mentoring relationships there is an informal continuity on an equal basis.
Mentoring!
And then, of course, there’s the
possibility of being just the slightest bit
too organised!
Strengthening the profession
Barbara Hadlow
Koonung Secondary College
Eastern Metropolitan Region
Strengthening the Profession
Provides the mentee:
• Increased skills and knowledge
• A supportive environment in which successes and failures can
be evaluated in a non-confrontational manner
• A powerful learning tool to acquire competencies and
professional experience
• Networking opportunities
• Development of professional skills and self confidence
• Recognition and satisfaction
• Empowerment
• Encourages different perspectives and attitudes to one’s work
• Develops greater appreciation of complexities
Strengthening the Profession
Provides the mentor:
• Opportunities to test new ideas
• Renewed enthusiasm for their role
• Higher level recognition of their worth and skills through
encouragement to take on this mentoring role
• Challenging discussions with people who have fresh perspectives
• Satisfaction from contributing to mentees development
• Opportunities to reflect on and articulate their role and their
practice
• Developing a deeper awareness of their own behaviour
• Improved interpersonal skills in counselling, listening, modelling
and leading
• Improved ability to share experience and knowledge
Mentoring in a team teaching
context
Dr Craig Deed, La Trobe University
Sue Pollard, Weeroona Secondary College
Loddon Mallee Region
Loddon Mallee SCTE overview
•4 X 7-10 secondary schools
•25 (55 - 2012) PSTs 2-day a week placement for 25 days
•Multi-disciplinary PST teams placed in open-plan
learning neighbourhoods
•Evolving team-teaching and ‘new’ teaching & learning
strategies
•Focus on integration of university- and school-learning
Our challenge
•Mentor and PST must team-teach within a broader
learning-team environment
•Shared responsibility for communication, planning,
delivery and review
•Need to change the culture of school-based placement
Mentor perspective on challenge
•Clarification of mentor role in SCTE program
•Skills related to communication and planning with PSTs
•More experience in teaching in new flexible learning spaces
•Skills regarding connecting pre-service teachers to a class when
multiple classes are running in the same space
•New mentor protocols for team teaching environments
PST perspective on challenge: need effective
communication and flexibility to adapt plans
•“There is a disconnect with the rest of the school
week… its not practical to plan too far ahead, you need
to be able to adapt quickly” Jon, WSC
•“If you haven’t come in until Thurs/Fri you haven’t
seen the kids and don’t know how far they have got or
what they have done.” Georgie, WSC
Student perspective on challenge
Advantages of having a mentor and PST teaching
team?
“We got to know them a lot better and they got to
know us. It was a chance to see a different teaching
style and method” C
“We got to know him better … and learn his teaching
method which was different” T
Student perspective on challenge
Disadvantages of having a mentor and PST teaching
team?
“With two teachers swapping around, it was a bit
jumbled up sometimes – like the order of the
lessons” T
Question
• Are you experiencing similar challenges related to
mentors and PSTs team-teaching?
Proposed solution (1)
• Integrated development (university and school) of
practical teaching knowledge
• Working in flexible learning spaces
• Working in a team
• Lesson planning and delivery models, including adaptation
and differentiation (data-driven)
Proposed solution (2)
• Defining mentoring in a complex context
• Expectations
• Team-teaching as cultural change
• Expert-mentors in each school
• SCTE development of mentor knowledge and skills
• Early identification of mentors
• Local delivery of training and monitoring of
mentors
• Pre-placement planning processes
Proposed solution (3)
• Strategies on effective feedback and structuring
reflective conversation
• Clear advice on PST assessment
Proposed solution (4)
• Team-based communication, planning and review
strategies
• ‘Bounded-flexibility’
• Lack of time for face-to-face
• Use of social media
• Online collaboration
Questions
• What suggestions do you have for:
• Team-based planning, communication and review
strategies?
• Defining mentoring in new contexts?
• Mentoring models in new contexts?
Mentor/mentee conversations can be enhanced by use of
current reference points and frameworks such as:
•VELS – Standards and Progression Points
•e5 Instructional Model:
•Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, Evaluate
•Assessment data (e.g.):
•Teacher Judgements against the VELS, NAPLAN, On Demand Testing,
Mathematics Online Interview, English Online Interview, etc
•Key characteristics of Effective Numeracy Teaching (P-6) / (7 - 10)
•Key characteristics of Effective Literacy Teaching (P-6) / (7 - 10)
•Effective Schools Model
•English / Mathematics / Science / ESL Developmental Continua
•Principles of Learning and Teaching (PoLT)
•AITSL National Graduate Teacher Standards
•VIT Standards for Graduating Teachers
Effective conversations can be supported by ‘norms’
of collaboration for individuals and for groups
•Pausing to allow time for thought
•Paraphrasing to ensure deep listening
•Putting inquiry at the center to reveal and extend thinking
•Probing to clarify
•Placing ideas on the table / placing information and perceptions before the
group
•Paying attention to self and others to monitor our ways of working
•Presuming positive intentions to support a non-judgmental atmosphere
Effective mentors demonstrate
particular characteristics
•Have experience as educators
•Will model current and effective teaching practice
•Understand the purpose and content of a practicum
•Will allow a PST to take reasonable risks and will support graduated teaching
responsibility
•Are effective communicators and will provide frequent verbal and written
feedback
•Are enthusiastic, patient, flexible, organised, problem-solvers
•Are seen by others as leaders in education
•Believe mentoring is an opportunity for personal professional growth
What are the professional learning needs of
mentors?
• The skills, knowledge and understandings I need to
strengthen in order to be a more effective mentor
• The factors that would help me build my mentoring
skills, knowledge and understandings