Bera Annual Conference(university of Warwick)
7 September 2006
A Study on the Mentoring System for Beginning Teacher
Tadashi ASADA(Waseda University)
Yuko UOSAKI(Waseda University)
Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference,
University of Warwick, 6-9 September 2006
Problem
In Japan Educational Reform has been going on for about ten years.
Now its focus
is on teacher professional development system, for example establishing a new type
graduate professional school for teachers. Teachers must now hold a license(certificate)
which needs to be renewed every ten years, and an obligatory teacher training program
has been introduced for all teachers having 10 years teaching experienced. There
addresses serious problems identified in the quality of teachers in Japan.
For beginning teachers, the In-SeT program was introduced in 1988. All teachers
must take this program for 1 year according to National School Education Act. This
program consists of 2 training courses. One is a training course organised within one’s
own school for 300 hours per year(Kounai-kenshu). The other is a training course
organised out of school for 25 days per year (Kougai-kenshu). In Kounai-kenshu(a
training within school), a mentor with much teaching experience takes on the job of
teaching/coaching for 4 beginning teachers. The content of Kounai-kenshu is (1)
observation of the lesson and giving the some hints of improving one’s lesson, (2)
acquiring the way of doing school affairs. In Kougai-kenshu, there are supervisors who
give many lectures at the prefecture educational training institute to the beginning
teachers about the Education Act, about educational administration, teaching,
classroom management, etc.. During their summer vacation, beginning teachers engage
in social service. The aims of Kougai-kenshu are to foster the sound belief of teacher
professionalism and to understand the teaching jobs.
This
study
focuses
on
the
mentoring
which
supports
training
within
school(Kounai-kenshu). The rationale for this study is that beginning teachers do not
always achieve the objectives of their initial teacher training program. Some teachers
leave their job within a few months. Other teachers soon feel overwhelemed by
classroom experience. With regard to these pressing problems, we developed the
mentoring system using video-based reflection like video interaction guidance (VIG).
Tadashi ASADA & Yuko UOSAKI
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Bera Annual Conference(university of Warwick)
7 September 2006
The mentoring system using video-based reflection
The main aim of this system is for each beginning teacher to be aware of his/her own
problem of teaching and this problem constitutes their research question. If the mentee
becomes aware of his/her own problem, he/she will try to solve it voluntarily and come to
ask any questions of his/her mentor or other colleagues. As a result, this system can
prompt the mentee to engage in a reflective teaching cycle.
This system, which we studied, encouraged beginning teachers to engage in
systematic reflection consisted of 3 components: 1) teaching practice by beginning
teacher (mentee) and on-going cognition of the issues of teaching practice by mentor, 2)
making video clips from mentor’s cognition, 3)the conference by mentor, mentee, and
university staff. The concept of this system is to help beginning teachers to acquire ways
of reflection and other perspectives of teaching based on their own teaching. From the
viewpoint of continuing professional development, it is important for them to learn how
to teach by reflecting on their own teaching practice. In turn, mentors can learn many
things from university staff and self-reflection of their own teaching experience too.
This system is thought to help both mentor and mentee to learn how to teach, and thus
it is considered that the mentoring system which has been introduced in Japan
enccourages mentors and mentees to learn reciprocally.
Our research focus: Aspects of mentoring
The subject is two mentees and one mentor. One mentee is female, another is
male. She is in charge of 3rd grade. He is in charge of 5th grade. The mentor is male and
has more than 15 years teaching experience, but has never taken any program
involving mentoring. We recorded the mentor’s comments about two mentee’s lessons by
IC recorder during teaching.
One of the features of the mentoring we observed was giving praise for the
mentee´s class management behavior, for example, ensuring students faced towards a
teacher to listen to what the teacher says, and giving clear instructions for stopping
students learning activity prior to changing the learning situation. Another feature was
to praise mentees for paying attention to their learning skills, for example, explaining
definitely how to take notes, and recognising the importance of preparation for learning
before teaching, and so on. Conversely a mentor was careful to point out obscure
Tadashi ASADA & Yuko UOSAKI
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Bera Annual Conference(university of Warwick)
7 September 2006
instructions and questions. Moreover, the mentor we studied advised about making a
question concrete and specific. His mentoring tended to focus on class management and
basic teaching skills, especially questioning and explanation. He did not give hints
about the tempo of teaching until he realized a mentee did well about class
management,
Component I:recording the lesson
Mentee: to implement one’s lesson
Mentor: to record the comment about the issues by IC recorder
during lesson
Univ.staff: to record the lesson by 2 video cameras
Component II: processing the video to support reflection in dialogue
Univ.staff: to make video clips according to mentor’s comments
Component III: conference
Mentee: to learn new practical knowledge from own practice and the new
perspectives from mentor and university staff through reflection
Mentor: to give the mentee some hints in order to improve his/her
practice and learn the latest information about teaching and other
perspectives from university staff
University staff: to be ablle to provide insights into the most up-to-date
knowledge about teaching and learn practical knowledge from mentor
and mentee
Fig. 1 The mentoring system using video-based reflection
The mentee’s research questions(tasks)
As mentioned above, the main aim of this system of initial teacher preparartion is
for each beginning teacher to be aware of his/her own problem of teaching. With this in
mind, we investigated the change in cognition about his/her own teaching problem. We
asked two mentees to write about their problem in teaching in the form of a current
reality tree based (a kind of flow chart) drawing on the theory of constraints (TOC). The
current reality tree shows what needed to change.
Tadashi ASADA & Yuko UOSAKI
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Bera Annual Conference(university of Warwick)
7 September 2006
The most important task
I cannot ask an effective question to deepen a child’s idea.
I cannot bring out child’s remarks.
Why ?
Why ?
My explanation is unclear
I advise overmuch while I teach, so
and insufficient.
that children are distracted when I
give advice.
Why ?
I do not study about teaching
materials sufficiently.
Fig. 2 The task before video-based reflection(female teacher)
The most important task
I must deepen the study of teaching materials and clarify
the main questions in the lesson plan.
I must consider the concrete phrases of questioning,
instruction, and explanation.
Fig. 3 The task after video-based reflection(female teacher)
The most important task
I want to think about how to react to student’ remarks, e.g. his expression, how to
give KR, etc.
I have little teaching experience,
I do not have enough experience of
so I need to observe many lessons
both
by different experienced teachers.
materials
studying
and
about
teaching
preparing
for
teaching.
I need to express individuality to the class.
Tadashi ASADA & Yuko UOSAKI
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Bera Annual Conference(university of Warwick)
7 September 2006
Fig. 4 The task before video-based reflection(male teacher)
The most important task
There the gap between the lesson objectives and what students are learning.
( The lesson objectives are not definite)
I study about teaching materials
I set definite objectives of every
sufficiently,
lesson with considering about
and
understand
each
student in detail. So I think about the
the academic ability.
way of individualized instruction.
I need to have a rough perspective of a learning unit
Fig. 5 The task after video-based reflection(male teacher)
As a result of our investigation, we found the cognition of teaching problem changed
before and after meeting the mentor. A female teacher focused on how to question and
how to advise before meeting. After meeting, she also focused on question. Her
important task did not change, but she became aware what she should do to solve her
task after meeting. She did not know what she should do to improve her lesson although
she knew her problem of her lessons before meeting.(Fig.2,3)
Before meeting, the male mentee focused on his teaching behavior/teaching skill. His
problem was how to react to pupil’s remarks, for example, expression, the way of KR,
advice and so on. After meeting, he focused on teaching objectives, teaching contents,
and the flow of lesson. His framework of recognizing the teaching is thought to change
from what students do to how to achieve the educational objectives.(Fig.4,5)
Conclusion
Above all, we conclude that this mentoring system is served the purpose of
facilitating professional development for beginning teachers. If this system is included
in Kounai-ken(In-SeT program within school), Kounai-ken offers a major potential to
help teachers to develop their profession within schools. If we compile a video clip
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Bera Annual Conference(university of Warwick)
7 September 2006
database of beginning teachers, they will be able to have a chance to learn new practical
knowledge based on the video through the internet.
Tadashi ASADA & Yuko UOSAKI
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