128
these abilities comes from situating them in a critical understanding of the theory of
the aims of mentoring.
Praxis in Online Mentoring
The idea that mentoring programs can support a high quality of praxis was explored
through practice, by developing an online mentoring ecosystem between the years
2014–2017 and ongoing. TeachConnect (www.teachconnect.edu.au) is an online
platform that supports teachers in the transition from preservice into the profession,
particularly during professional experience (Kelly et al., 2016 ; Kelly, Clará, &
Kickbusch, 2015 ; Kelly, Reushle, Chakrabarty, & Kinnane, 2014 ). At the time of
writing, TeachConnect involves over a thousand Queensland teachers, with the
majority of these being preservice and beginning teachers. Despite this uptake, the
online community is still in its developmental phase, and the program has not been
formally evaluated. Discussion will focus upon the mentoring program that has
been put in place.
TeachConnect was developed as a platform that supports dialogic communities
of mentorship in many different configurations. It was developed as design-based
research over four phases of consultation, design and testing with participants to
inquire into the design needs for teachers within online communities (Kelly et al.,
2016 , 2014 ). A brief description of TeachConnect serves to describe the communi-
cation channels that it affords, the communities that were convened within it and the
understanding of praxis for online mentoring that resulted.
The main channel for mentoring in TeachConnect is through what is termed in
the platform mentorship circles – private spaces (closed to non-members) that are
small by online standards whilst being large by the standards of group mentoring
(<60 people). A second space of mentoring is through one-to-one contact, what is
termed messaging (similar to email) within the platform. Finally, all members also
have access to a single community knowledge space. The community knowledge
area is designed to support conversations around specific themes, responding to the
questions posed by members of the community. This allowed support for many
types of mentorship within the platform: group (one to many with preservice and
experienced teachers in mentorship circles), peer (preservice and beginning teach-
ers helping one another in mentorship circles and community knowledge) and one-
to- one mentorship (messaging an experienced teacher).
One way to consider the affordances of these different channels of communica-
tion is by examining the six ways in which teachers can support one another online
(Kelly & Antonio, 2016 ): through support in reflecting on practice, providing feed-
back, modelling practice, socialisation in the profession, pragmatic support and
convening relationships. Figure 8.1 shows which of the six types of support prevail
within each of the different areas of TeachConnect. Whilst each of these channels
for communication can support the formal convening of dialogical communities
N. Kelly et al.