Does Mentor Training Impact Coaching Practice or Candidate Preparation?

• In Event: 61.036 - Using Statewide Data to Improve Teacher Education Through a Research-Policy Partnership

Abstract

A new study in Chicago suggests that preservice candidates feel better prepared when their cooperating teachers model more effective instruction and provide more and better coaching; despite this, few cooperating teachers received training on how to coach teacher candidates (Authors, forthcoming). While there exists extensive literature demonstrating positive effects of teacher coaching, including mentor training programs, on in-service teacher performance (Kraft, Blazar, & Hogan, 2018), relatively few studies have linked cooperating/mentor teacher training to the instructional performance of the preservice candidates that they mentored. The two exceptions we know of, though, suggest that mentor training can positively impact teacher candidate performance (Giebelhaus & Bowman, 2002; McQueen, 2018). However, these were small-scale, underpowered studies of boutique training programs; more research is needed to test whether training programs can have meaningful effects across preservice programs. Drawing on this prior literature, the TDOE developed and piloted a mentor training program with two EPPs during the 2017-18 academic year. They are expanding training to four EPPs during the upcoming year (2018-19), with plans to scale-up the training further in subsequent years.

This paper describes the pilot year implementation of the mentor training program and an analysis of whether the initiative impacted mentor coaching practices or the preparation experiences of their candidates. At both EPPs, some mentors were assigned to the pilot training program (treatment condition) but others received business-as-usual forms of training (control condition); at one EPP, the mentors were assigned randomly to condition. Mentors in both conditions were sent online surveys at different periods of the student teaching semester and asked to describe the mentoring activities during the prior week. This paper examines whether there are differences in mentoring practices reported by trained mentors versus control mentors, and whether observed differences align with the intended training. Also, we examine whether or not observed differences persist over the course of the student teaching semester.

Teacher candidates in both EPPs also completed pre- and post-student teaching surveys which included questions about both the frequency and quality of mentoring they received, how well-prepared to teach they felt, and future career plans. We test whether teacher candidates paired with mentors in the treatment condition report different kinds of mentoring and whether they feel more prepared to teach in their first year.

This paper provides an assessment of the training program, including implications for how to revise the training as the TDOE scales it up to ensure success. It adds to the existing, albeit scant, evidence on whether and how mentor training can improve candidate preparation and, thus, inform policy and practice related to mentoring. Future work will track graduates into their first year of teaching to test whether there are differences between condition in terms of employment rates and instructional performance.

Authors

• Matthew Ronfeldt, University of Michigan

• Hannah Mullman, University of Michigan

• Emanuele Bardelli, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor