Mentoring Student Interns During the School Lockdown: Individualized Learning in Teacher Training

• In Event: Reenvisioning Mentoring for Equitable Outcomes: Changing Philosophies, Practices, and Systems

Abstract

From the perspective of students, school internships are a very important part of teacher education, they have even been claimed to be ‘the core’ (“das Herzstück”) of teacher training at university (Arnold et al. 2011, p. 8). Within these internships the importance of those teachers who function as mentors at schools has been stressed in several studies (Gröschner et al. 2013, p. 83). However, their job as role models who pass on their practical knowledge to the students has similarly been praised as helpful for transforming theory into practice and criticized as lacking innovative impulses and therefore being an obstacle to school development (Siedenbiedel 2020; Staub et al. 2012).
Theoretical Underpinnings
During the Corona Pandemic schools in Germany were suddenly forced to lockdown and switch to distance learning settings. Neither schools nor universities were prepared for such a situation (Anger et al. 2020; Berghoff et al. 2021). As a logical consequence, the school lockdown had effects on school internships of students in teacher education – as the students could not visit a locked down school. Accordingly, teacher education was in a difficult situation having to offer alternatives for school internships as they could not be postponed. Accordingly, during school lockdown mentoring became a new challenge, had similarly to be switched into distance learning settings.
Methodology
This contribution focuses on the question how mentors at schools found innovative ways to contribute to teacher education during the pandemic, especially in Summer 2020. On the basis of a qualitative content analysis (Kuckartz 2018, Mayring 2015) of the reports of mentors in Hessen on their activities and the reports of students of Kassel university on their internships during the pandemic the activities of mentors in this particular situation will be systematically described.
Findings
The results – that show different elements of distance mentoring – will be discussed with regard to the question whether innovative impulses for a sustainable further development of mentoring towards an equitable teacher education in a digitalized world can be derived from these rather spontaneous reactions to the lockdown.

Author

• Catrin Siedenbiedel, Universität Kassel