106
Introduction
This chapter seeks to open up existing conceptions of mentoring, supervision and
the professional experience. The constructs of communicative space (Habermas,
1987 ), communicative action (Habermas, 1984 ) and an Integrative Pedagogy Model
(Tynjälä, 2008 ) are used as theoretical frames to ‘see’ professional experience in
learning and teaching differently. To bring life to these discussions, a series of
vignettes illustrate how mentoring and being mentored is at once an epistemological
(what we know or can do) and ontological (how we are learning to be) experience.
This analysis highlights the characteristics and complexities inherent within pro-
fessional experience, which can be seen to entail a particular kind of learning (drawn
from the Habermasian notion of lifeworlds) known as learning to be (Dall’Alba,
2009 ). That is, in the professional experience setting, mentor teachers, teacher edu-
cators and preservice teachers are engaged in ongoing negotiations of identities in
practice or ‘learning to be’ teachers and mentor teachers. Mentoring and being men-
tored is thus an experience that requires complex and recursive negotiation of social
and intrapersonal worlds concurrently. This view of the professional experience
highlights new ways of understanding the pedagogical challenges faced by both
mentors and mentees. We propose that an integrative pedagogical approach can
strengthen practices for mentors and enhance the learning experience of mentees as
they work together to navigate the professional experience space (Tynjälä, 2008 ).
Mentoring in the Changing Landscape of Teaching
and Learning
Teaching and learning to teach occur in a complex, changing landscape (Clandinin,
Downey, & Huber, 2009 ). The rich and multifaceted research base that now shapes
professional experience practices in Australia and beyond, includes strategies for
generative partnerships (Kruger, Davies, Eckersley, Newell, & Cherednichenko,
2009 ) and strengthens reciprocal learning relationships (Le Cornu & Ewing, 2008 ).
Additionally professional experience supports learning communities (Le Cornu,
2009 ) and communities of practice (Sim, 2006 ) with the importance of ongoing
academic commitment (Zeichner, 2005 ) and increased scholarship (White,
Bloomfield & Le Cornu, 2010 ).
In this chapter, we look closely at the personal and relational complexities spe-
cific to professional experience and in particular give our attention to what some
have described as the significant epistemological, ontological and personal-
psychological shifts that preservice teachers must undergo (Bahr & Mellor, 2016 ;
Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009 ; Le Cornu, 2009 ). These shifts are transformative and
so demand particular kinds of awareness and dispositions on the part of both the
mentor and the mentee, if the experience is to be positive and transformative. These
are addressed in the discussion section of this chapter.
M. O’Brien et al.