Teachership Lifelong Learning (TeLL)Making Mentoring a Resource in the Teacher’s Work

TeLL Conference 30.-31.-06 Jyväskylä

Mentoring in Supporting Newly Qualified Teachers

- A Finnish Experiment

Hannu JokinenInstitute for Educational Research

University of Jyväskylä

hannu.jokinen@ktl.jyu.fi

Teachership Lifelong Learning (TeLL)

Making Mentoring a Resource in the Teacher’s WorkHannu Jokinen

Background of the Study

Challenges of teachers and teacher education

Induction phase of newly qualified teachers

Teachership Lifelong Learning (TeLL)

Making Mentoring a Resource in the Teacher’s WorkHannu Jokinen

Aims of the Study

What are the activities of new teachers and their mentors and what are the issues discussed between them?

How it is possible to support the professional development and the professional identity of newly qualified teachers by mentoring?

How can theoretical knowledge from initial teacher education and novices’ practical experiences from the first work place be turned by mentoring, to promote their continuing professional development and professional identity?

Mentoring in the Finnish school context

Teachership Lifelong Learning (TeLL)

Making Mentoring a Resource in the Teacher’s WorkHannu Jokinen

What is mentoring? – there are many interpretations

• We meet mentoring in many fields of life: business, church, health care, hospitals …

• It comes true differently in the various contexts and in different forms

• Near concepts: supervision, coaching, tutoring, guidance, networking

Teachership Lifelong Learning (TeLL)

Making Mentoring a Resource in the Teacher’s WorkHannu Jokinen

Research Data and Method

Group mentoring project in Kokkola

19 new teachers, 7 experienced teachers

5 separate groups with 2-5 new teachers from different schools

Mentoring was organised as group discussions outside the school

Pair mentoring project in Helsinki

One new teacher and one mentor, total of 9 mentoring pairs

Empirical material was collected by using questionnaires, interviewing mentors, mentees, and school principals, and by recording some meetings of mentoring groups

Interview and recording data were subjected to content and discourse analysis

Teachership Lifelong Learning (TeLL)

Making Mentoring a Resource in the Teacher’s WorkHannu Jokinen

The Description of the mentoring process

Mentoring – an opportunity for interaction and dialogue

• An opportunity to discuss with an experienced colleague and persons at the same position > Special time for NQTs

• An opportunity to ask questions - Needs of new teachers - Own daily problems

• Interaction and therapeutic discussions

Important to mentors: art of listening, guiding the discussion

Teachership Lifelong Learning (TeLL)

Making Mentoring a Resource in the Teacher’s WorkHannu Jokinen

The Description of the mentoring process

The major problem areas

• students with various problems

• interaction with parents

• difficulties with becoming a member of the school

community, collaboration with their colleagues

• pedagogical questions

• lack of stability in employment and work-related stress

Teachership Lifelong Learning (TeLL)

Making Mentoring a Resource in the Teacher’s WorkHannu Jokinen

The Description of the mentoring process

Changing and considering• experiences,• opinions and• thoughts

analyzing• problems and• solutions

Teachership Lifelong Learning (TeLL)

Making Mentoring a Resource in the Teacher’s WorkHannu Jokinen

The Description of the mentoring process

Confidentiality and equality

• Confidential and safe atmosphere

• Tolerant and supportive, individual and peer support

• Seeking for good and positive, don’t tackle all

• Openness and equality

• Not assessment

Teachership Lifelong Learning (TeLL)

Making Mentoring a Resource in the Teacher’s WorkHannu Jokinen

The Description of the mentoring process

Reflection on one’s experiences

• Calling in question and constructive critic

• Reflection of their own situation and activities

• They reflect their own situation and activities against experiences of other new teachers

• Critical friends

Teachership Lifelong Learning (TeLL)

Making Mentoring a Resource in the Teacher’s WorkHannu Jokinen

The Description of the mentoring process

Learning to teach and professional growth

• Interactive learning

• Finding nqts’ own ways, no ready models

• Reinterpreting and reconstructing meanings of events and situations

• Finding nqts’ place in the school by encouraging them to engage in exploration, experimentation and risk-taking • Developing and supporting nqts’ professional identity

Teachership Lifelong Learning (TeLL)

Making Mentoring a Resource in the Teacher’s WorkHannu Jokinen

The Mentoring process seems to be about

Teachership Lifelong Learning (TeLL)

Making Mentoring a Resource in the Teacher’s WorkHannu Jokinen

Some conclusions and questions

• It should build a bridge between initial teacher education and practical work at school – induction and mentoring

• Newly qualified teachers’ rich resources to their future school community

• Mentoring delivered outside or inside of own school?

• Mentoring as an example of collaborative working in the school community

• Could mentoring be seen as a flexible form of continuing education?

• Mentoring has the special place in teachers’ continuing professional development

Teachership Lifelong Learning (TeLL)

Making Mentoring a Resource in the Teacher’s WorkHannu Jokinen

Results about the mentoring process

Mentee:

“You could pose your own questions and share your own worries

or things you have wondered about. It’s somewhat relieving to

meet other people with similar thoughts and problems. You get a

number of good suggestions of what to do in the situation, how

to proceed. It has been really conversational or dialogical. The

mentor has not kept up a strong role.”

Teachership Lifelong Learning (TeLL)

Making Mentoring a Resource in the Teacher’s WorkHannu Jokinen

Results about the mentoring process

Mentor:

“My role as a mentor has been a kind of a catalyst – you raise

some issues and ideas or thoughts. (…) my role has been a kind

of courier or a guide. Mainly I have promoted people to reflect

the issues from many perspectives. In the beginning I said

aloud much more, but excitingly the newly qualified teachers

have caught the point and nowadays they ask questions each

other. In a way, we have gradually moved into a kind of peer-to-

peer mentoring. It has happened in a very easy and natural

way.”

Teachership Lifelong Learning (TeLL)

Making Mentoring a Resource in the Teacher’s WorkHannu Jokinen

Mentoring seems to be about

Mentoring helps teachers to reinterpret and reconstruct the meanings of events and situations central to their own work

Mentoring helps teachers to find their place in the school by encouraging them to engage in exploration, experimentation and risk-taking