teachers can see what they expect to see (Loughran 2006 ), thereby confirming a
whole host of their unmediated assumptions about teaching and learning. In
Men/tee, the problem of ‘uneducative’ and ‘miseducative’ observation was
explored through collaborative inquiry and focused observation was introduced as a
pedagogical strategy to counter it, including through the introduction of observation
schedules. In the following excerpt, Caroline describes how she structured her
pre-service teacher’s observations of other teachers at work
I said,“Okay, go down and look at year seven eight and nine. Look at how they start the
lesson. Do they do much chalk and talk and then think about why or why not?”So it gave
me the idea of giving a list of questions so that they actually had a structure to look at when
they’re observing...Then he’d come back and actually say to me,“yeah I noticed that
you’re right. They don’t do much chalk and talk and they do more group activity.”So I
found that really good.Here, Caroline demonstrates her understanding of the pedagogical potential of
structured observation. In this case, she used it to create an experiential learning
opportunity for her pre-service to understand how to balance direct instruction and
activity-based learning. With his own lived experience‘that you’re right’about the
balance, the pre-service teacher was more willing to accept Caroline’s critique of
his practice in this regard.
As well as structuring their pre-service teachers’observations, Men/tee partici-
pants were also encouraged to deliberately and explicitly model particular aspects
of teaching as part of their approach to mentoring. Like structured observation, this
was a new approach for many participants. Caroline explained thatalthough you get
them in the classroom, I’d never actually said specifically“come in and watch this
here and how I do it.”I’m just like,“come in and see what I do and learn from that
...”Caroline’s preexisting‘come in and see what I do and learn from that’
approach reflects a master-apprentice style of modeling whereby the apprentice is
encouraged by the master to‘do as I do.’Explicit modeling differs substantially in
that what is being modelled by the mentor is assumed to be neither self-evident nor
able to be imitated through mimicry.
Explicit modeling encourages pre-service teachers to articulate their thought
processes, to reflect on what they believe they have seen, and to integrate theory
and practice in those reflections (Smith 2014 , p. 25). Explicit modeling therefore
creates opportunities for mentors to both explicate their intentions and to clarify
pre-service teacher misconceptions. Here, Tim describes how he incorporated
explicit modeling as a mentoring strategy
I said [to the PST],“Alright, well you’ve got to be looking for who is listening, why are
they sitting there, why is so and so sitting there, what am I doing with her, her and her or
what am I doing with this kid or stuff like that.”So I think it opened my eyes up to different
challenges and different things that I should be pointing out to student teachers, whereas in
the past I hadn’t pointed it out to them.Like Caroline, Tim indicates that, prior to Men/tee, he had not thought to make
explicit to his pre-service teachers what he was modeling for them, or what he
hoped they would see in their observations of his practice. Professional learning
19 Supporting Mentoring and Assessment in Practicum Settings... 293