How Mentors Learn: Exploratory Analysis of Mentor Teachers’ Professional Learning Conversations

• In Event: Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: Teacher Commitment, Retention, and Staffing in the United States and Abroad

Abstract

While studies have shown that mentoring is essential to the development of new teachers, fewer investigations have examined what mentors learn about themselves and about teaching through this role. In this study, we focused on the learning of 13 mentors by analyzing learning conversations they had with their mentees, their self-evaluations of those conversations, and focus group data gathered from mentors over a two-year period. Preliminary analysis indicated that mentors often experienced a shift in views of themselves as teacher to a perception of themselves as teacher and learner as a consequence of collaborative conversations with mentees. In effect, they came to appreciate the reciprocal nature of the mentor-mentee relationship, although factors affected the degree of shift manifested.

Authors

• Frances June Langdon, The University of Auckland

• Annaline Flint, University of Auckland

• Alexis Ryde, University of Auckland