Mentoring for Responsive Teaching: Characterizing Mentoring Practice of Collaborative Pedagogical Reasoning

• In Event: Innovations and Advances in Mathematics Instruction

Abstract

Purpose
This poster presents initial work from a study of Mentors Teachers learning to support novice teachers’ development of pedagogical reasoning for responsive mathematics teaching. We focus specifically on the concept of collaborative pedagogical reasoning (Co-PR), a mentoring approach that involves joint inquiry and discussion between mentor and novice teachers to make explicit the reasoning and decision-making processes involved in responsive teaching. This poster offers a conceptualization of Co-PR and its growth over time, along with illustrative examples drawn from mentor-novice conversations.

Guiding Perspectives
Teaching responsively involves positioning learners as sensemakers and building on the diversity of their ideas and identities to support mathematics learning (Jacobs & Empson, 2016; Robertson et al., 2016). Skillful pedagogical reasoning about students and classroom interactions as they unfold is critical to successfully enacting responsive teaching. Learning to engage in responsive mathematics teaching, however, is challenging. We hypothesize that mentor teachers (hosting preservice teachers) can support novices to develop pedagogical reasoning for responsive teaching, if they are supported to do so. We also believe that learning to support novices in this way can also enhance mentors’ reasoning and teaching practices. Research suggests that coaching conversations between mentors and novices tend to focus on visible teaching actions, without explicit attention to reasoning and decision-making, leaving novices to learn the complex work of responsive mathematics teaching simply by watching their mentors (Valencia et al., 2009; Hoffman et al., 2015). Our study explores ways that mentors can engage with novices to support their reasoning about classroom events through collaborative pedagogical reasoning.

Methods and Data Sources
To conceptualize Co-PR, we analyzed transcripts of mentor-novice conversations that took place during the 2024-25 school year. Mentor-novice pairs were drawn from one of three distinct teacher education programs that share a commitment to preparing elementary teachers to develop as responsive teachers. All mentors were participating in a professional learning program that introduced protocols to support collaborative conversations along with monthly inquiry groups where mentors discussed their experiences with others.

Analysis and Emerging Results
Drawing on existing work on pedagogical reasoning and collaboration, we created indicators of Co-PR, including: joint work around problems of practice (Little, 1990); interaction surfaces specific means for identifying, elaborating, and conceptualizing/reframing the problem (Little & Horn, 2007); conversation goes beyond particulars to more general principles guiding decision making (Little, 1990, Little & Horn, 2007); and implications for future practice are surfaced (Horn et al., 2017). These indicators allowed us identify instances of Co-PR and differentiate between those that were superficial or early-stage and those that demonstrated substantial depth. We were also able to track changes in participation in these interactions over time, illustrating growth in mentors’ and novices’ reasoning practices, as well as novice development in understanding themselves as professional partners with their mentors.

Significance
Our findings suggest that collaborative pedagogical reasoning can be a way to bring novices into the work of pedagogical reasoning through scaffolding and joint inquiry. Further, supporting mentors to engage in Co-PR with their novices can shift the way they conceptualize their roles.

Authors

• Janine Remillard, University of Pennsylvania

• Riku Sayuj, University of Pennsylvania

• Arati Bapat, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Anna Dailey, Boston University

• Annabel Stoler, Boston University

• Carol Vieira, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Sophie Meuch, University of Pennsylvania

• Hala N. Ghousseini, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Meghan Shaughnessy, Boston University