Patterns and Styles of Mentors' Talk in Learning Community

• In Event: Mentoring Conversations in Teacher Education: Roles, Relations, and Reciprocity

Abstract

Introduction
Mentored learning communities of practice have become integral to teacher education curricula. This comes as a response to recent views calling for learning to teach to become a more ‘situated social practice’, one that creates relevant links between academic preparation and school-based experiences (Feiman-Nemser & Carver, 2012). Studies on learning communities have focused on the discourse that develops in teacher learning communities and how it shapes participants’ development (Hadar & Brody, 2012) and on the knowledge that develops and the conditions conducive for learning in community (Lewis & Ketter, 2004). Less research has been conducted on the processes that unfold in mentored learning interactions and on how these create particular learning environments for student-teachers’ learning in collaborative school-based practice teaching settings, the focus of this study. In this paper we present part of the findings of a larger study which focused on the discursive features that characterize mentor mediation of student-teachers’ learning in a community (Author, 2014). Specifically, it examined how particular discursive features shaped the power relations that emerged and how these, in turn, promoted particular forms of learning environments. We asked: How do mentors’ styles and patterns of talk operate in the discourse to shape a community learning environment?

Method
The community of learners consisted of 11 student teachers and a university mentor who was responsible for facilitating the group discussion. The group met on a weekly basis throughout one academic year. Data collection included 23 video-recorded meetings of the learning community of 11 student-teachers and a university mentor and 25 semi-structured interviews with all participants including the mentor. The discourse was analyzed using Institutional Conversation Analysis—and Critical Discourse Analysis to explore how events during the discourse reflected and shaped the social framework and the power relations in the group.

Findings
We identified three patterns of talk (two that shape hierarchical relationships and one that shapes egalitarian relationships) and eight styles of talk (three that shape hierarchical relationships and five that shape egalitarian relationships). In cases where the combination of the mentor's style and pattern of talk encouraged more egalitarian power relations, the learning environment was characterized by openness, active involvement and shared responsibility for knowledge creation. In cases where the combination of the mentor's style and pattern of talk encouraged a more hierarchical relationship, the learning environment intensified the status differences between the participants, led to closure on the part of the students and focused mostly on transfer of knowledge. In cases where there was no congruence between the power relations promoted by the pattern and those promoted by the style of talk, the learning environment was influenced more by the mentor style of talk. These cases will be presented and discussed.

Contribution
Our study identifies styles and patterns of talk in mentoring conversations as new dimensions for examining how particular roles, norms of conduct and power relations shape particular forms of learning environments. It suggests raising mentors' awareness of how different moves in the discourse can promote different kinds of community learning environments.

Authors

• Mirit Rachamim, Oranim College of Education, Israel

• Lily Orland-Barak, University of Haifa