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this chapter, we consider the way that an understanding of mentoring as praxis can
inform the design and implementation of online mentoring communities in an effort
to raise the quality of mentoring. Online mentoring is still in its infancy, changing
as the affordances of connected technology have advanced (Jones, 2015 ). There is a
need for inquiry into the praxis of online mentoring; how should an understanding
of praxis inform the design of online communities that support teachers? This chap-
ter focusses upon the design of an online mentorship community that is particularly
aimed at supporting preservice teachers during professional experience.
We adopt Habermas’s conception of praxis as a natural condition of human
beings that is present in all activity (Habermas, 1984 ). The consequence of this is
that we speak not of the presence or absence of praxis but rather of the quality of the
praxis in mentoring. Mentoring is thus conceived of as an activity that can be done
intentionally to a greater or lesser degree, where the quality of that intention is open
to critical reflection (Ax & Ponte, 2008 ). Mentoring occurs within a hierarchy of
contexts (educational setting, community, system, state, nation, individual world-
view). This questioning of the quality of praxis can be made at the level of individu-
als – a specific mentor teacher may have a higher or lower quality of praxis – or at
the level of a system, where a system may support a high quality of praxis to a
greater or lesser extent. Consideration of the praxis of mentoring extends to the
social, philosophical and moral understanding of the individuals involved in the
action and to the context in which the action occurs.
The notion that praxis is always present but may be of higher or lower quality
begs the question who is it that judges this quality of the values that inform practice?
We do not wish to enter this philosophical debate around the quality of the values
themselves. Rather, the aim is to suggest that the quality of praxis is improved
through the presence of mentoring conversations that interrogate theoretical foun-
dations and their relationship to practice. Mentoring, we argue, should be conceived
of as the dialogical community through which this higher quality of praxis is
achieved (Bernstein, 2011 ). Mentors bring to the act of mentoring, in the dialogue
between mentor and mentee, their conception of how they understand the teaching
profession. Hargreaves and Fullan ( 2000 ) hold that ‘[m]entoring ... will never reach
its potential unless it is guided by a deeper conceptualization that treats it as central
to the task of transforming the teaching profession itself’ (p. 1). It is a fundamen-
tally Freirean argument (Freire, 1970 /2007) that mentoring without considered
intention may lead a mentor to perpetuate the status quo, whilst with intention men-
toring can become a transformational act at various levels in the hierarchy of teach-
ing contexts. This theoretical lens of critical pedagogy provides a perspective for
talking about mentoring as having the potential to transform rather than reproduce
educational systems. The sentiment is summarised by Kemmis ( 2010 ) who argues
that research into praxis has twin goals, ‘(1) to guide the development of educa-
tional praxis and (2) to guide the development of education itself’ (p. 9).
Striving for high-quality praxis in mentoring is thus of great significance to the
teaching profession. Mentoring of both preservice and early career teachers is a key
means of sharing knowledge and theory between one generation of teachers and the
next. The development of high-quality mentoring programs is not an ‘end in itself’
N. Kelly et al.