Training for Newly Qualified Teachers and Their Mentors

1. Training for Newly Qualified Teachers and Their Mentors High Reliability Schools 1998

2. Understanding the Concept of Mentoring • The term mentor was originally derived from Homer’s Odyssey, where the mentor was a trusted guide and couselor, and the mentor-protégé relationship a deep and meaningful association

3. Currently, mentoring in schools is used in an unrestricted way to mean the establishment of an ongoing relationship between an experienced educator and a less experienced educator for the purpose of professional guidance

4. Current Status of Mentor Programs in the United States • Thirty four state-mandated statewide mentor programs were enacted through 1992 • The mentoring of novice teachers by veteran teachers is the central feature of many beginning teacher programs

5. Effective mentoring is defined by the following attributes: • the process of nurturing; • the act of serving as a role model; • five mentoring functions (i.e., teaching, sponsoring, encouraging, counseling, and befriending); • a focus on professional development and/or personal development; and • an ongoing caring relationship

6. Mentoring Rationale • New teachers need support and continuing staff development to succeed • Mentoring is a successful induction strategy • Mentoring benefits all participants (new teachers, mentors, and schools)

7. Induction programs… • resolve immediate problems; • improve teaching skills; • provide emotional support; and • socialize teachers into the school

8. Benefits of Mentoring • New teachers receive support to become competent professionals • Mentors reexamine their own teaching beliefs and practices, and develop the competencies necessary to share their expertise • Mentors pass along the knowledge and skills they have gained through experience

9. The leadership opportunities, training, and compensation available to mentors contribute to greater job satisfaction • School districts benefit from the increased competence and satisfaction of new teachers and mentors, • School districts are better able to attract and retain new teachers • Mentor programs are interactive systems which benefit all participants

10. Purpose of Mentor Programs • Induct new teachers into the school system by: • providing information about school procedures; • sharing the research on effective instruction; • communicating important school norms, traditions, and values; and • provide assistance tailored to the circumstances of beginning teachers in individual schools

11. Mentor Characteristics • Willing to be a mentor • sensitive • helpful, but not authoritarian • astute • diplomatic • able to anticipate problems • nurturing and encouraging

12. timely in keeping beginners appraised of their successes • careful to keep the beginner’s problems confidential • enthusiastic about teaching • good role model at all times

13. Criteria for Successful Mentors • Mentors should be excellent teachers and judged by their supervisors to have the ability to plan and implement organized, academically focused lessons • Mentors should possess “mentor qualities.” They should have a positive attitude toward the students, teachers, administrators, and parents who make up the school community

14. Good mentors are people-oriented and even-tempered; they respect and like their subordinates and engender trust and respect in others. They should be confident, secure, flexible, altruistic, caring, and sensitive to the needs of proteges

15. A Mentor Wears Many Hats: Functions of Mentoring • A content analysis of the collected tasks of mentors mentioned in job descriptions revealed that these fell into three major categories: 1- professional support 2- technical support 3- personal support

16. assisting guiding modeling advising instructing demonstrating coaching observing supporting meeting documenting providing feedback identifying resources planning curriculum Mentors As Verbs...

17. Common funtions of mentors include the following: • Socializing the protégé into the culture of the classroom, the school, the district and the profession • Modeling appropriate teaching in the protégé’s class or by inviting the protégé to observe the mentor teaching • Providing instructional resources for the protégé • Meeting with proteges to discuss common concerns

18. Providing advice in the areas of classroom management, report card preparation, parent conferences, and school administration • Providing feedback • Encouraging the protégé in the face of minor failures • Acting as a sounding board and confidante • Accompanying the protégé to conferences, workshops, etc. • Serving as an intermediary for the protégé with school, district, or programadministrators

19. Meeting with school administrators about individual proteges or issues related to the conditions of teaching in the school • Meeting with other mentors or program administrators for purposes of problem-solving • Completing paperwork related to mentoring functions performed and/or the progress of the protégé • And, (though infrequent) counseling individuals to choose alternative careers outside of teaching

20. The Mentoring Process • Mentors working with a novice should concentrate their efforts in three critical areas: the classroom, emotional support, and practical applications

21. Classroom Guidance • Provide knowledge about school policies and curriculum • Provide knowledge about student needs • Provide information about the community’s educational expectations • Model techniques that are helpful with special-needs students • Encourage joint participation in grade-level planning activities • Invite participation in cross-grade and school planning activities • Impart your wisdom and expertise

22. Emotional Support • Give regular constructive feedback • Exhibit confidence and support for protégé’s decisions • Make time to listen • Help find joint solutions to problems • Treat proteges as adults and partners • Support them in taking risks • Encourage them to be involved in activities outside of school • Remind them that all work and no play leads to stress

23. Practical Applications • Encourage joint research projects • Encourage them to join local teachers’ organizations to broaden their growth and development • Encourage interactions with district and staff members • Tell them about the student body, faculty and community • Inform them about district rules and regulations

24. Relationships • Working with adults is seldom a breeze, because we are dealing with varied standards and behavioral styles • Interpersonal skills such as listening, patience, and understanding are imperative to mentoring

25. Much of what is written about mentoring suggests that there is a life-cycle to the mentoring relationship. As the protégé becomes more experienced and self-confident as a teacher, his/her needs and the type of support he/she requires from a mentor apparently changes as well

26. The mentor relationship is one of the most developmentally important relationships a person can have in early adulthood • The mentoring relationship passess through a series of phases: initiation, cultivation, and separation • Characteristics affecting the mentoring relationship include mentor’s age, gender, organization position, power, and self-confidence • The crucial component of a mentoring relationship is the ability to work together, not necessarily social background or common outside interest

27. What is the Head’s Role in Mentoring? • Since head teachers are the first contacts teachers have within a school community, they are the first with whom relationships are forged • When first hired, the novice tends to regard the head as a mentor, but this changes as the question of formal evaluations occurs

28. In the beginning, the novice may not be certain who to trust. If a head understands this early, and appoints an experienced teacher to serve as ongoing mentor, the beginning teacher will not flounder • A mentor becomes a source of support only when not seen as threatening or evaluative

29. To ensure the novice’s success, the head must know the strengths of the staff when seeking a mentor for the beginning teacher • Head teachers also need to provide mentors and beginning teachers with time to spend in each other’s work space and to meet regularly- not just when a crisis occurs

30. Concerns and Questions of Mentor Teachers • The most common concerns of mentors focus on mentoring activities: How much advice to give, how often to meet, how often to step in when the mentee is in need, how involved to get in advising the beginning teacher regarding teaching styles, methods, etc.

31. Another concern is the struggle to strike a balance between mediating in the beginner’s work so as to prevent bad experiences and allowing experiences to take their own course

32. Other concerns include: Mentoring the poorly prepared or discouraged teacher; how much help/advice to offer to someone who thinks or knows they do not need much help; how to feel like a resource, rather than an evaluator or judge; forgetting what it is like to be a new teacher; and will the mentor role be enjoyable?

33. Perceived Obstacles • Often, teachers doubt their qualifications to serve as mentors • Beyond that, four areas of concern, acknowledged most by mentor teachers, include: (1) time required; (2) matching beginning teacher and mentor; (3) qualifications of beginning teacher; and (4) support for mentoring and mentoring activities

34. Many mentors suggest that problems in finding time for mentoring was compounded by their involvement in a variety of other professional activities, ranging from serving as cooperating teachers to involvement in site-based management teams. • Concerns about the match between mentor and beginning teacher often deal with personalities and teaching philosophies and ideologies.

35. Some mentors are concerned about working with a mentee who doesn’t want help and how the mentee will react to having a mentor • Other concerns of mentors include: how good the beginning teacher is; how sensitive; how tough emotionally; how dedicated; and how the new teacher views herself/himself • One important concern of mentors is how to effectively role model without knowing the mentee’s students

36. Mentors also raise questions about the degree of support available to mentors and for mentoring activities • Mentors are also often concerned about having no budget for teacher inservices, lack of administrative support for mentoring, and involved time and effort.

37. Points to Ponder • There is a danger in assuming that the dispositions and skills associated with good teaching are identical to those involved in mentoring; Being a mentor is similar to being a cooperating teacher, but certainly not identical • Mentor programs work best when the first and primary responsibility is to meet early career teachers’ needs, whatever they are

38. And…. • Because mentoring involves highly personal interaction, conducted under different circumstances in different schools, the roles of mentoring cannot be rigidly specified. Mentoring, like good teaching, should be defined by those who will carry it out • The range of helping strategies used, time-consuming reflection, modeling, and collaborative problem-solving suggests that mentors have a serious desire to help develop real competence, not just to offer emotional help