169Conclusion
This project designed an interactive tool that aimed to collate descriptive observa-
tion evidence that can create space for participants to collaboratively engage in dia-
logue about pedagogical practice. The intensive focus on evidence-informed
dialogue with preservice teachers during teaching placements is innovative through
the amount and type of records provided as well as the way that evidence is used in
order to improve field experience and teaching practices. Evidence of teaching prac-
tice in this model comes from a range of people, all having different relationships
with the preservice teacher. The preservice teachers engage in discussions not only
with their in-school mentor but also a clinical specialist who is a university lecturer,
a teaching fellow (an expert school teacher who oversees preservice teachers in a
partnership group) and, increasingly, their peers. Evidence of practice collected
focuses on both teaching and learning, what the teacher is saying, doing, making
and writing and what the students in the class are saying, doing, making and writing.
This evidence is highly beneficial to the development of these beginning teachers as
it asks them to focus on processes of teaching and equally on student learning.
Preservice teachers learn to routinely turn their attention to a range of evidence to
gauge the effectiveness of their teaching practices. During school placement experi-
ences when collection of evidence is used to inform future practice, the instructional
impact is strengthened. Importantly, these professional conversations using evi-
dence have strengthened preservice teachers’ reflective practice.
Unquestionably initial teacher education aims to develop teachers who use evi-
dence to inform their teaching and who think critically about their practice (Earl &
Timperley, 2009 ; Kriewaldt et al., 2017 ). Drilling into the power of description, this
observation tool guides the descriptive work which then requires the preservice
teacher to engage in conversations in which they have agency to suggest improve-
ments rather than accept – or resist – advice. Description builds the foundation of a
conversation that is based on fine-grained evidence that can be gathered in a lesson
observation. By making sense of teaching through these processes, preservice
teachers are schooled to continue to interrogate their practice and to feedforward
their learning to refine their teaching as a result of dialogues with observers.
Using the concept of relational agency as an analytical aid to think again about
mentoring practices led us to understand that teacher educators and preservice
teachers coming together on this task and working with evidence on the problem of
improving student learning expanded the object of activity. This advanced the
preservice teachers’ growth in improving their teaching practice by developing their
capacity to reflect using classroom evidence. The concept of relational agency has
led us to reframe our thinking about mentoring practice and to more highly value
working in concert during post-lesson conversations to expand our mutual under-
standing of student learning.
Key to this reframing of the post-lesson conversation has been the focus on
evidence- based reflection, enabled by the reification of the teaching episode using
the descriptive observation tool. The T3 has reified the teaching episode as an object
10 Fostering Professional Learning Through Evidence-Informed Mentoring Dialogues...