Reinventing Teacher Mentoring-as-Praxis: Discursive Connections and Consequences in the Context of University Teacher Education

• In Event: Reinventing (University) Teacher Education: Connections, Contexts, and Consequences

Abstract

Contexts: Objectives and Significance to the Field

Drawing on a synthesis of studies on mentoring and mentored learning in the context of pre-service and in-service teacher education in Israel (Orland-Barak, 2010), I suggest a framework for re-conceptualizing mentoring from the acquisition of strategic skills to the development of discursive competencies. This shift calls for a praxical approach to teacher mentoring in university teacher education--underscoring its intellectual, cultural and contextual dimensions. In this sense, reinventing teacher mentoring as praxis proposes a curriculum that attends to diversity, underscoring how mentors' ideological, political, and moral stances intersect with pedagogical action to shape curricular reasoning in diverse settings and populations of teachers and student teachers.

Evidence on mentoring and mentored learning highlights generic attributes that cross mentoring practices: a process form; an active relationship; a helping process; a formalized reflective teaching-learning process; a career and personal development process; and a role constructed by and for a mentor (Achinstein, B. & Athanases, 2006). A perspective on learning to mentor as 'praxis' explores how these generic attributes play out in diverse mentoring contexts and interactions--with a focus on how they are grounded in ethical, moral, cultural and political conflicts, dilemmas, and tensions--at the intersection between theory and practice (Cochran-Smith, & Fries, 2002).

Connections: Perspectives and Analyses

This paper draws on a synthesis of empirical studies based on authentic mentoring cases, critical incidents, in-depth interviews with mentors and mentees , and observations and transcripts of mentoring conversations both in pre-service and in-service education in Israel (Orland-Barak, 2010). The analysis is framed within socio-cultural perspectives on professional learning, defining discourse as a way of talking about and acting upon the world, which both constructs and is constructed by a set of social practices (Fairclough, 1992; Gee,1996 ). Rooted in particular institutions, discourses embody their idiosyncratic culture, hence guiding actors to adopt particular constructions and positionings (Harre & Gillett, 1994). Data sources are critically analyzed and interpreted from this perspective, illustrating their discursive, dialogical constitution by focusing on how mentors position themselves in the discourse in respect to the local conventions of rights, duties, judgments, and acts; how they construct particular communicative acts ( i.e. support, challenge, probe, clarify) while mediating professional learning; and what the consequences are for mentored learning.

Consequences: Findings and Implications

The integrative analysis reveals a portrayal of mentoring in three domains of praxis: appreciation, participation and improvisation. These manifest themselves in multiple discursive interactions such as: recognizing and confronting gaps between the mentor and the mentee’s codes and norms of behavior; reframing perspectives on resistances as rooted in contradictory values; recognizing culturally diverse texts and privileged and rejected discourses; attending to culturally valued texts in potentially intimidating interactions; connecting emotionally and professionally to respond to contextual differences, and foregrounding connections between cultural codes, values, strategic and pedagogic reasoning. Programmatically, the three domains and their discursive connections offer a basis for reinventing a curriculum for learning to mentor -as-praxis in university teacher education.

Author

• Lily Orland-Barak, University of Haifa