Mentoring of Novice Teachers' Induction to the Profession in Russia

• In Event: 47.080 - The Value of Mentoring to Improve Teaching Practices: International Perspectives

Abstract

The current context of mentoring novice teachers in Russia is distinguished by the availability of programs ensuring the development of human resources potential in educational institutions. The problems faced by young teachers, their professional deficiencies and requests are evidenced by the results of an international study TALIS (Teaching and Learning International Survey) (Russian teachers, 2015). Novice teachers have difficulties with professional communication and face obstacles in accessing professional development. They are not ready to solve practical teaching problems and have insufficient knowledge of modern teaching techniques. The objective of the paper is to reveal the development of innovative organizational models of mentoring novice teachers at the regional and municipal levels in Russia.
The purpose of these projects is to ensure the professional growth of novice teachers who are able to carry out the quality of general education while the dominant role in its implementation is played by the school itself, its teaching and managerial staff. Their design is carried out according to the requirements of the Teachers’ professional standard (2013). To meet these requirements, it is necessary to modernize the mentoring models of teachers’ induction. There are 5 mentoring models of teacher induction in Russia: increasing motivation, increasing methodological potential, advanced training, personal professional support, corporate culture development and social partnership development.
In the study of the efficiency of the mentoring projects of novice teachers’ induction to the profession, their immersion into the real educational environment of the secondary school we conducted a pedagogical experiment in which novice teachers from several educational institutions (63 people) involved in the system of novice teacher s immersion projects (42 of them having a bachelor's and master's degree in Pedagogy; 21 - not having a bachelor's degree in Pedagogy, but having a master's degree in Pedagogy). The main task of the experiment was to determine which vector directions of young teachers support programs are more conducive to their professional development. During the experiment initial research interviews were conducted before the involvement of young teachers in immersion projects (August-September, 2017), as well as final research interviews (January, 2018). The evaluation of the results of the activity was carried out using reference parameters. During the interviews, young teachers were asked to give their viewpoints regarding the impact of the reference parameters on their professional development (the formation of psychological and pedagogical competence, the development of methodological potential, the development of corporate culture, etc.). At the initial stage, opinions were more assumptive and based either on teachers’ previous experience of participating in projects or on their intuition. The final interviews were of longer duration; teachers’ conclusions were well-reasoned and valid due to their extended experience in each of the reference parameters of the survey. Evaluation of the experimental results was carried out by statistical processing of small samples (the Mann–Whitney U test).

Authors

• Roza A. Valeeva, Institute of Psychology and Education, Kazan Federal University, Russia

• Aydar M. Kalimullin, Kazan Federal University