Mentoring Early Career Teachers in General and Special Education

• In Event: Collaborative Approaches to Mentoring and Induction for Early-Career Teachers

Abstract

This paper identifies challenges that come up for early career teachers in Special Education and general education in supporting learners with academic or behavioral difficulties or disabilities, and the ways their mentors support them. The research takes place inside an induction program that is a partnership between a university and a district. We draw on a social ecological framework to address the ways TLs and ECTs construct meaning as they interact with and respond to education systems (Bronfenbrenner, 1994). Using the logs mentors kept as a central data source (which we call interaction logs), this research works to better understand the protective factors that mentors employed in supporting their mentees when faced with challenges involving instruction or systems surrounding special education and students with disabilities:

1. What are the experiences of General and Special Education ECTs related to Special Education?
2. How are TLs responding to challenges to support ECTs in these instances?

Participants in this study included eight externally-hired mentors (Teacher Leaders, TLs) and 14 early career teachers (ECTs), at 14 different schools, three of whom worked in SPED, four in bilingual education, and seven in general education classrooms. The data sources for this qualitative study include a subset of interaction logs (N = 847) composed by these TLs to document their work across three academic years (2021–2024). Using key words to help identify logs focused on special education, followed by line-by-line analysis, we focused our analysis on those logs that reported challenges related to Teaching Assistants (TAs). We open coded 92 interaction logs (Corbin & Strauss, 1998) to identify themes related to challenges faced by the ECTs and mentor responses. While analysis is ongoing, we share emerging results in the next section.

TLs described ECTs’ experiences with TAs on structural and interpersonal levels. On the structural level, interactions between ECTs and TLs reflected the shortage of paraprofessionals and COVID-induced backlog of educational services within the urban district. This shortage was also felt for students possibly needing services due to a COVID-induced backlog of testing to identify students with needs. In cases where ECTs did have access to TAs, TLs described ECTs’ interpersonal difficulties in establishing roles and responsibilities with the TAs in their classrooms.

Amidst these challenges, TLs provided responsive, caring, and strong support to ECTs as they navigated challenges related to the special education system. The guidance from TLs served as protective factors to the ECTs, building on their strengths and addressing issues “in the moment”, while also advocating at the campus- and district-level when the challenges ECTs faced necessitated additional support.

Together, these emergent findings suggest that ECTs’ classrooms are spaces where macrolevel district structures intersect with on-the-ground happenings of teaching. Implications for research and practice include a need to foster collaboration between general and special education teachers, and increased guidance for preservice and early-career teachers regarding special education (including supporting all learners and collaborating with paraprofessionals in the general education space).

Authors

• Emily Mauer, University of Texas at Austin

• Kelsie Corriston Burnett, University of Texas at Austin

• Beth Maloch, University of Texas at Austin