Parallel Mentoring: Working With and Alongside but Never Against

• In Event: Roundtable Session 20
  In Roundtable Session: Action Research: Pathway to Personal Growth, Cultural Awareness, and Quality Mentoring

Abstract

This action research study examines the mentoring relationship of two university-based teacher educators. In this study, we aim to differentiate between our mentoring relationship and traditional models of mentoring. In doing so, we pose a new type of mentoring relationship: parallel mentoring. For us, parallel mentoring (among other things) describes situations in which faculty members join in collaborative mentoring situations where standard hierarchies are eliminated. Specifically, for this cycle of our action research, we ask, “How does a parallel mentoring situation encourage us, as teacher education faculty members, to address deep philosophical and practical issues that might otherwise go unexamined in more traditional mentoring relationships?”

Authors

• Ryan Flessner, Butler University

• Julie R. Horwitz, Rhode Island College