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Teachership Lifelong Learning (TeLL)Making Mentoring a Resource in the Teacher’s Work
TeLL Conference 30.-31.-06 Jyväskylä
Mentoring in Supporting Newly Qualified Teachers
- A Finnish Experiment
Hannu JokinenInstitute for Educational Research
University of Jyväskylä
Teachership Lifelong Learning (TeLL)
Making Mentoring a Resource in the Teacher’s WorkHannu Jokinen
Background of the Study
Challenges of teachers and teacher education
Induction phase of newly qualified teachers
Teachership Lifelong Learning (TeLL)
Making Mentoring a Resource in the Teacher’s WorkHannu Jokinen
Aims of the Study
What are the activities of new teachers and their mentors and what are the issues discussed between them?
How it is possible to support the professional development and the professional identity of newly qualified teachers by mentoring?
How can theoretical knowledge from initial teacher education and novices’ practical experiences from the first work place be turned by mentoring, to promote their continuing professional development and professional identity?
Mentoring in the Finnish school context
Teachership Lifelong Learning (TeLL)
Making Mentoring a Resource in the Teacher’s WorkHannu Jokinen
What is mentoring? – there are many interpretations
• We meet mentoring in many fields of life: business, church, health care, hospitals …
• It comes true differently in the various contexts and in different forms
• Near concepts: supervision, coaching, tutoring, guidance, networking
Teachership Lifelong Learning (TeLL)
Making Mentoring a Resource in the Teacher’s WorkHannu Jokinen
Research Data and Method
Group mentoring project in Kokkola
19 new teachers, 7 experienced teachers
5 separate groups with 2-5 new teachers from different schools
Mentoring was organised as group discussions outside the school
Pair mentoring project in Helsinki
One new teacher and one mentor, total of 9 mentoring pairs
Empirical material was collected by using questionnaires, interviewing mentors, mentees, and school principals, and by recording some meetings of mentoring groups
Interview and recording data were subjected to content and discourse analysis
Teachership Lifelong Learning (TeLL)
Making Mentoring a Resource in the Teacher’s WorkHannu Jokinen
The Description of the mentoring process
Mentoring – an opportunity for interaction and dialogue
• An opportunity to discuss with an experienced colleague and persons at the same position > Special time for NQTs
• An opportunity to ask questions - Needs of new teachers - Own daily problems
• Interaction and therapeutic discussions
Important to mentors: art of listening, guiding the discussion
Teachership Lifelong Learning (TeLL)
Making Mentoring a Resource in the Teacher’s WorkHannu Jokinen
The Description of the mentoring process
The major problem areas
• students with various problems
• interaction with parents
• difficulties with becoming a member of the school
community, collaboration with their colleagues
• pedagogical questions
• lack of stability in employment and work-related stress
Teachership Lifelong Learning (TeLL)
Making Mentoring a Resource in the Teacher’s WorkHannu Jokinen
The Description of the mentoring process
Changing and considering• experiences,• opinions and• thoughts
analyzing• problems and• solutions
Teachership Lifelong Learning (TeLL)
Making Mentoring a Resource in the Teacher’s WorkHannu Jokinen
The Description of the mentoring process
Confidentiality and equality
• Confidential and safe atmosphere
• Tolerant and supportive, individual and peer support
• Seeking for good and positive, don’t tackle all
• Openness and equality
• Not assessment
Teachership Lifelong Learning (TeLL)
Making Mentoring a Resource in the Teacher’s WorkHannu Jokinen
The Description of the mentoring process
Reflection on one’s experiences
• Calling in question and constructive critic
• Reflection of their own situation and activities
• They reflect their own situation and activities against experiences of other new teachers
• Critical friends
Teachership Lifelong Learning (TeLL)
Making Mentoring a Resource in the Teacher’s WorkHannu Jokinen
The Description of the mentoring process
Learning to teach and professional growth
• Interactive learning
• Finding nqts’ own ways, no ready models
• Reinterpreting and reconstructing meanings of events and situations
• Finding nqts’ place in the school by encouraging them to engage in exploration, experimentation and risk-taking • Developing and supporting nqts’ professional identity
Teachership Lifelong Learning (TeLL)
Making Mentoring a Resource in the Teacher’s WorkHannu Jokinen
The Mentoring process seems to be about
Teachership Lifelong Learning (TeLL)
Making Mentoring a Resource in the Teacher’s WorkHannu Jokinen
Some conclusions and questions
• It should build a bridge between initial teacher education and practical work at school – induction and mentoring
• Newly qualified teachers’ rich resources to their future school community
• Mentoring delivered outside or inside of own school?
• Mentoring as an example of collaborative working in the school community
• Could mentoring be seen as a flexible form of continuing education?
• Mentoring has the special place in teachers’ continuing professional development
Teachership Lifelong Learning (TeLL)
Making Mentoring a Resource in the Teacher’s WorkHannu Jokinen
Results about the mentoring process
Mentee:
“You could pose your own questions and share your own worries
or things you have wondered about. It’s somewhat relieving to
meet other people with similar thoughts and problems. You get a
number of good suggestions of what to do in the situation, how
to proceed. It has been really conversational or dialogical. The
mentor has not kept up a strong role.”
Teachership Lifelong Learning (TeLL)
Making Mentoring a Resource in the Teacher’s WorkHannu Jokinen
Results about the mentoring process
Mentor:
“My role as a mentor has been a kind of a catalyst – you raise
some issues and ideas or thoughts. (…) my role has been a kind
of courier or a guide. Mainly I have promoted people to reflect
the issues from many perspectives. In the beginning I said
aloud much more, but excitingly the newly qualified teachers
have caught the point and nowadays they ask questions each
other. In a way, we have gradually moved into a kind of peer-to-
peer mentoring. It has happened in a very easy and natural
way.”
Teachership Lifelong Learning (TeLL)
Making Mentoring a Resource in the Teacher’s WorkHannu Jokinen
Mentoring seems to be about
Mentoring helps teachers to reinterpret and reconstruct the meanings of events and situations central to their own work
Mentoring helps teachers to find their place in the school by encouraging them to engage in exploration, experimentation and risk-taking