"I Am a Stronger Teacher Now": Describing How Mentoring Affects Mentor Teachers' Practice

• In Event: Inside the Mentor Teacher's World: Broadening Our Understanding of Mentor Roles, Activities, and Professional Growth

Abstract

Objectives
This paper analyzes the ways mentor teachers describe the impact of mentoring on their own practice. It discusses the ways in which serving as a mentor impacts their approach to lesson planning and delivery, as well as their ability to self-reflect.

Perspective(s) or theoretical framework
Much of the mentoring literature focuses on the impact of mentoring on pre-service and early career teachers (see Dunst et al. (2020) or Sponner-Lane (2017) for a review). However, mentoring may also have positive impacts for mentor teachers themselves. Prior research has outlined some of the benefits of mentoring for teachers’ self-reflection and awareness (Beutel et al., 2017; Mathur et al., 2012). Little research has explored the specific mechanisms by which serving as a mentor can improve a teacher’s classroom practice.

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry
The study draws on qualitative data from a sample of teachers serving as mentors in teacher residency programs to ask: How does serving as a mentor impact teachers’ classroom practice?

Data sources
We analyze open ended data from the National Center for Teacher Residencies 2019 – 2020 Mentor Survey. Mentors (N = 406) were asked to describe how their mentoring experience impacted their instructional practice, mentoring and coaching skill, and/or classroom practice.

We couple this qualitative data with responses to a survey question gauging mentors’ (N = 406) and principals’ (N = 147) assessments of whether serving as a mentor improves teacher practice.

Results
81% of mentors and 93% of principals agree that serving as a mentor makes teachers more effective practitioners and teacher leaders. We find four mechanisms by which serving as a mentor impacts teacher practice. First, teachers feel that acting as a mentor improves their practice simply by virtue of the fact that they are being carefully observed by their mentees. Second, mentor teachers describe how the training they receive to become mentors positively impacts their knowledge of standards and lesson planning. Third, serving as a mentor improves teachers’ self-reflection skills. “It truly makes me see my weaknesses, reflect, and adjust better than anything I have done in teaching so far,” one teacher explains. Finally, some mentors say they are able to learn from their mentees, who bring “the latest and greatest tools for instruction” to the classroom.

Significance of the study
This research highlights the value that serving as a mentor can have on a mentor teacher. In the paper, we discuss the policy implications, specifically describing the training and support that mentor teachers receive from residency programs and how this training/support helps them grow in their practice. This research thus contributes to the field the ways teacher preparation programs can support mentors in ways that benefit not only mentees but the mentors themselves.

Author

• Carrianne Scheib, National Center for Teacher Residencies