While Linda was focused onwhat to teach about teaching, Diana’s shift to
thinking like a‘second order practitioner’(Murray 2002 ) was characterized by a
focus on a changing conception ofhowto teach about teaching. Diana explained
I actually felt like I was thinking about what my role as a mentor was and was really
conscious of every conversation and action I took. The constant reflection made me realise
how much everything you do with your pre-service teacher influences them and helps shape
them into becoming a better or worse educator.In ITE, Loughran ( 2006 ) argues that teacher educators are always modeling
whether they are conscious of it or not. Diana’s comments above reflect precisely
this kind of understanding of her potential influence as a school-based teacher
educator.
Thefinal point to make about participants’role and identity development is that
their new understanding of their roles as mentors and school-based teacher edu-
cators also led to new understandings about their work and expertise as teachers.
Paul simply stated:I feel like I’m a lot better in terms of not only being amentorbut
in my own teaching. For Linda, too, professional learning about mentoring
encouraged a deep layer of reflective learning about her own teaching
Now I am aware of breaking down my teaching practice into parts that I could speak about
to other people. Ifind I can justify my practice better to myself as my awareness of it grows,
and I am deliberately trying new ways of doing things, to see the effect...I’ve got this real
passion for teaching and I’ve kind of had that before but now I’ve really got it, I’ve really
got a buzz. Like people get it in travel, I’ve got a teaching buzz.Invited to consider the mentoring role as providing learning experiences about
teaching, participants had to make explicit their tacit knowledge about teaching and
learning, to articulate their wisdom of practice,first to themselves and then to their
PST. Doing so created a heightened sense of identity and strengthened appreciation
of their work as teachers.
19.5.2 Tools and Strategies for Effective Mentoring:
A Teacher Educator’s Approach
Existing university-led mentor professional development appears to take more of a
‘training’approach in which mentors are offered opportunities to upskill in key
aspects of mentoring such as coaching, providing feedback, and setting professional
learning goals (Crasborn et al. 2008 ). Men/tee offered a departure from this
approach. Much more than‘mentor training;’Men/tee was premised on the idea of
deepening and indeed shifting participants’understandings of teacher education and
of their role within it from that of mentor to school-based teacher educator. This
involved engaging them in collaborative professional learning about teacher edu-
cation itself, with a curriculum focused less on the skills of mentoring and more on
exploring some of the key pedagogical approaches, processes and strategies used by
19 Supporting Mentoring and Assessment in Practicum Settings... 291