Can we mentor beginning teachers effectively?
Which type of rooms is the biggest room that you can think of?
The biggest room that we all really need is the room for improvement.
Mentoring is a developmental and mutually beneficial partnership in which a knowledgeable others with relevant expertise grows a colleague towards quality teaching and learning. (Adapted from Lipton, L. & Wellman, B. (2003). Mentoring matters: A practical guide to learning focused relationships. MiraVia, LCC.)
Characteristic of mentees
As mentoring teachers, we do not always get the model mentee that agrees and follows everything that we said.
Beginning teachers can come in all shapes and sizes where some can be very humble while others can be extremely defensive.
It is quite impossible for mentoring strategies to be duplicated exactly for all mentees.
There is really a great need for individual customisation just like our classroom students.
Different mentees can take different levels of stress.
Some are like sponge where they absorb everything you say and are positive about your comments. These teachers will take your comments and move on from there.
Some really are bullet-proof where you can just give any comment but none can get into them. You are almost like talking to a wall that you are unable to get through.
There is also another type like cotton candy. You need to be careful with your words as they can easily melt down under the slightest heat. Giving comments to them must be extremely tactful.
Focus on the students
This is one of the most effective ways to coach a beginning teacher where your suggestions would be taken by any types of teachers.
Have you ever tried correcting the way a beginning teacher teaches and it backfires with many reasons by the teacher?
Pointing out what have gone wrong in the way he/she teaches, may just hurt a teacher’s pride and ego.
When your mentoring conversation is about how the students reacted during the lesson, most beginning teachers will reflect about it.
When the students are not learning well, you can start a conversation focusing on what are the ways that we can help students better in understanding the concepts.
Approaching this way, we can start a conversation and lead them into reflecting possible ways using leading questions.
It is definitely good for mentors not to instruct about what they should have done.
Let the mentee tell us what the possible strategies can be used since the outcome may not have reached his/her expectations.
By focusing on the students, mentor and mentee are able to start a meaningful mutual discussion to deepen the teaching pedagogy together as partners rather than the top-down instruction mode.
Use of Mentoring Language
Paraphrasing
Paraphrasing or repeating certain part of what is shared by mentee shows that you are an active listener who wants to ensure you understand the information shared by mentee.
Possible starters for paraphrasing
- Do you mean…
- In other words, you are saying …
- Are you mainly concerned about …
- You have brought up some key points like …
Clarifying with examples
There can be certain points mentioned by your mentee that you are not able to understand clearly.
This is the part where you try to clarify with your mentee.
Possible starters for clarifying
- When you told me about … , can you give me more examples?
- What do you mean when you were saying about … ?
- Can you describe the situation to me?
Leading questions
Using leading questions, you may want to extend the conversation to find new solutions or different approaches to guide thinking, learning and pedagogy.
Possible starters for leading questions
- What other possible ways that you think may work?
- I saw many of your students …, what are the strategies you think you can use to help them better?
- What could be the possible reasons that your students did not understand your lesson?
- What sort of impact do you think you can have on them when you ….?
Responses
Let the mentee communicates how he/she feels about the lesson without passing any judgement by the mentor.
At this stage, mentee can have greater awareness of his/her area for improvement without the need of mentor pointing it out.
Possible starters for positive responses
- What did you do well during your lesson?
- How much have you achieved for your expected learning outcomes?
(Remember to praise the mentee for being reflective if he/she can see their own shortcoming) - How would you do differently if you were to redo the lesson again?
(Let the mentee decide how the lesson can be improved)
In conclusion
My short article is unable to cover all aspects of mentoring.
It is a fact that the personality of a mentor can play a part in mentoring certain types of mentee as well. (Matching right mentor to a suitable mentee)
The general rule during mentoring sessions is really not to highlight the faults of the mentee but focus on the students.
Have a meaningful conversation and discussion as partners of education on how and what could have been done to make the concept clearer and achieve learning outcomes more effectively.
Disclaimer: This is my personal reflection and I am not in any position to instruct anyone what they should do. I am not responsible for any action taken as a result of this post. My post can only be a reference for your further research and growth. By reading this post, you acknowledge and accept that. All images and pictures were taken from google images that are free from copyright under labelled for reuse.
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Mentoring and being mentored are never really easy things to do. I really hated being mentored because I didn't like people 'looking' over my shoulder, but some of my best learning experiences came from these times.
I remember my first mentor, she was a great teacher, and offered me so much great advice. My second mentor was a legendary teacher. He gave me advice wether I wanted/needed it or not, and I still, 11 years later, remember a lot of what he said.
I've had the opportunity to mentor a few student teachers in my time, and I find that the responsibility of guiding these new teachers into their chosen career is huge. While trying to keep their dreams intact, you must adequately give them honest feedback on where they're actually at, and sometimes, even tell them that they're going to need a lot more work.
You've included some good advice here. Thanks for your post.
Thank you for sharing your experience. It is so true. Even though we may not be able to teach every class, getting these new teachers to the right track, we can definitely impact many students beyond what we can reach.
This is a very informative post, way to go. This is a great post and can be a great reference for teaching growth.
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It is nice to see how we can make others feel that we are listening to them actively by using paraphrasing techniques!
Thank you for reading and it is great that you found something useful!