Mentoring in an Urban Teacher Residency: Lessons Learned

• In Event: Lessons Learned From Urban Teacher Residencies

Abstract

With the recent emphasis on increased clinical experience for preservice teachers (e.g. NCATE, 2010, USDOE, 2011), the need for teacher preparation programs to examine the role of mentor teachers has correspondingly increased (Glenn, 2006; Norman, 2011). This is especially true for residencies, in which preservice teachers, referred to as residents, spend an academic year in one teacher’s classroom.

In this paper, we describe the mentoring component of Teaching Residents at Teachers College (TR@TC) and share three lessons learned over the program’s first three years. TR@TC, a masters level program, prepares ESL (English as a second language) teachers and teachers of students with disabilities for high-need schools.
To identify lessons learned, we draw on multiple date sources, specifically mentors’
reflections from surveys, focus groups, and conversations; program documents; and program staff reflections at weekly program meetings.

In the area of recruitment, program staff has learned the value of including potential
mentors early on. Initially, program staff worked with administration, often only the
principal, to explain the residency’s unique nature, its departure from traditional student teaching, and the difference in the mentor role. Program staff learned that administrator involvement of prospective mentors earlier in the process was a sign of a collaborative school community, ideal for residents. Oppositely, they learned that mentors who were selected by the principal were not as supportive of residents.

A second key learning has been around professional development (PD), which mentors attend monthly. Program staff has learned that they need to work with mentors around seeing residents as adult learners. Residents learn through constructing their own knowledge and understandings, and simply telling them something, such as how to check for understanding, does not mean they will enact or understand it. As such, mentor PD has shifted to focus on supporting mentors in developing strategies around professional talk, scaffolding, and feedback that foster adult learning.

Third, program staff learned the importance of actualizing the program’s stance of mentors as teacher experts (Achinstein & Athanases, 2006). This would include opportunities such as having mentors develop and carry out PD for other mentors or residents. While program staff has always embraced a stance of mentors as experts, they have discovered a need to be mindful of how mentors are included in program PD opportunities. For example, faculty who lead PD are paid almost four times what the university pays mentors. An ongoing conversation for program staff and mentors concerns developing more opportunities for mentors both to serve and to be treated as experts.

These lessons learned have implications for residencies and teacher preparation more generally, in terms of recruiting invested mentors and supporting mentor teachers’ growth and development as mentors and expert teachers. As long as the emphasis on clinical experience endures, we need to ensure that these experiences are rich opportunities for preservice teachers to develop their teaching practice. This is only possible when mentor teachers are not only excellent teachers of K-12 students, but also excellent mentors of adults.

Authors

• Sabrina Sanchez, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Rachel Roegman, Purdue University

• A. Lin Goodwin, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Emilie N. Reagan, University of New Hampshire