125but rather a part of the broader aim to support the profession in building better
teaching and learning (Hargreaves & Fullan, 2000 ; Hobson, Ashby, Malderez, &
Tomlinson, 2009 ). Mentoring in this project is conceived more broadly than involv-
ing a mentor and a mentee; rather it involves the wider teaching community (Kelly,
Clará, Kehrwald, & Danaher, 2016 ) and is an ‘integrated part of broader improve-
ment efforts to reculture our schools and school systems’ including early childhood
(Hargreaves & Fullan, 2000 , p. 5). Mentoring often takes place both for preservice
teachers during professional experience (Mattsson, Eilertsen, & Rorrison, 2011 )
and for beginning teachers in their early years of practice (Hobson et al., 2009 ).
Quality mentoring leads to improved teacher satisfaction and a greater likelihood
of retention, based upon self-reported data from beginning teachers as to whether
they found their mentor helpful (DeAngelis, Wall, & Che, 2013 ; Ingersoll & Strong,
2011 ; Smith & Ingersoll, 2004 ). Much of the literature on mentoring focusses upon
the organisational considerations that can hamper the quality of a mentoring pro-
gram, such as poor structuring of the mentoring program, inadequate time alloca-
tion and personal differences (Hobson et al., 2009 ). However, focussing on these
technical issues of management and policies can overshadow inquiry into the moral
and ethical dimensions of the conditions for mentoring programs that support high-
quality praxis. When considering the design and implementation of mentoring pro-
grams, there is a need to ask questions of praxis: How should mentors be, act and
behave? How can the education and training of mentors support them in bringing
their knowledge to the mentoring relationship? This is consistent with Freire and the
idea that ‘teacher preparation should go beyond the technical preparation of teach-
ers and be rooted in the ethical formation both of selves and of history’ (Freire,
1970 /2007).
Where Praxis Occurs
Mentoring is then conceived as a dialogic community within which praxis can be
raised through conversations about the intentions behind teaching practice. In order
to understand the impact that this may have for the design and implementation of
online mentoring programs, we use the technical dimensions of mentoring as a
prompt for the type of critical reflections that may occur within these dialogic com-
munities. We argue that a critical stance on the part of the mentor, and the system
that prepares mentors, forms a basis for amplifying the quality of praxis.
There are a number of frameworks that give voice to the technical skills for men-
toring (Barrera, Braley, & Slate, 2010 ; Hobson et al., 2009 ; Orland-Barak, 2010 ). A
useful and widely used synthesis of common components of mentorship is the five
factor model of mentoring (Hudson, 2004 ; Hudson, Skamp, & Brooks, 2005 ). The
five factor model was selected as a way to structure the discussion of the technical
dimensions of mentoring due to its relevance to the current context in Australia and
around the world. Programs based on the five factor model have been funded by a
number of states and territories throughout Australia, such as Queensland through
8 Raising the Quality of Praxis in Online Mentoring