Mentoring Teachers in Scotland

A Practical Guide

Sandra Eady, Jane Essex, Kay Livingston, Margaret McColl, Sandra Eady, Jane Essex, Kay Livingston, Margaret McColl

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000574128
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This book assists mentors in developing their mentoring skills, offering guidance needed to support the development of beginning teachers in early years, primary and secondary schools in the Scottish education system, as well as supporting all teachers in their career-long professional learning.

Based on research and evidence, Mentoring Teachers in Scotland explores and discusses the knowledge, skills and understanding that underpin mentoring that is responsive to individual mentees' needs. The book includes reflective activities to enable mentors to consider the application of mentoring processes in their own practice, as well as case studies and other learning activities. This book is a valuable source of support and inspiration for all those involved in mentoring and sustaining teachers' professional development at all stages of their career. Key topics explored include:

• roles and responsibilities of mentors within the Scottish education system, and the Scottish model of teaching and teacher development;
• developing a mentor–mentee relationship;
• guiding beginning teachers in Scotland through the mentoring processes;
• strategies for observation, analysis and reflection on practice; and
• mentoring for beginning teachers and career-long professional learning.

Mentoring Teachers in Scotland offers an accessible and practical guide to mentoring teachers in Scotland that aims to support, inspire and guide mentors and mentees.

SECTION 1The place of mentoring in Scottish education

1What do we mean by mentoring? The context for mentoring in Scotland

Kay Livingston

DOI: 10.4324/9780429356957-2

Objectives

At the end of this chapter, you should be able to:

• critically reflect on different definitions of a mentor and what these mean for mentoring approaches;
• understand the main elements of mentoring and how they underpin all approaches to mentoring;
• have an awareness of the context for mentoring in Scotland; and
• understand how different approaches to mentoring influence the different roles mentors take to support and challenge teachers at different stages of their career.

Introduction

The task of teaching is complex and continually changing, whether you are a student teacher, a beginning teacher or a teacher who is already well into your career. Mentoring has been recognised as having a prominent role in supporting the learning and development of student teachers and beginning teachers (Hobson et al., 2009; Ambrosetti et al., 2014). There is also a growing number of research studies that identify the positive outcomes of mentoring for all teachers, regardless of their level of experience, as part of their continuing professional learning (e.g., Bressman et al., 2018). This raises the importance of mentoring in all phases of a teacher’s career and increases the need for well-prepared mentors in schools. This book provides an opportunity to reflect on and develop your understanding of mentoring and your practice as a mentor. The aim is to enable you to think about and develop your understanding of mentoring from different perspectives.

This chapter begins by considering the challenges of defining mentoring. Different understandings of what mentoring means and what a mentor does are discussed in relation to the different approaches that mentors take with their mentees. These different approaches highlight the dynamic nature of mentoring relationships according to the learning aims and needs of their mentees. The range of mentor roles and the main underpinning elements of mentoring are discussed in the second section. The context and purpose of mentoring has implications for the choices that mentors make about roles and approaches, so the context for mentoring in Scotland is briefly introduced in the third section. In the final section, the different models of mentoring identified in the chapter are considered in terms of what and how mentors can draw from them to inform and improve their practice.

Different definitions of a mentor and different approaches to mentoring

There are different definitions of a mentor, and mentoring is open to many interpretations. This section begins with a task for you to reflect on your definition of a mentor and your understanding of what it means for mentoring in practice.

Task 1.1 Reflecting on your understanding of a mentor and mentoring

• What is your definition of a mentor and what is your understanding of mentoring?
• Take time before you read this section to reflect on and write down how you would define a mentor and mentoring.

‘Mentor’ and ‘mentoring’ are contested concepts and part of the reason for this is the different beliefs and theories people hold about what a mentor is and the role(s) they undertake. Colley (2003, p.524) argues that mentoring ‘is ill-defined, poorly conceptualised and weakly theorised’. However, according to Kemmis et al. (2014, p.155), confusion about mentoring ‘is not so much about a lack of theories but rather about a plurality of theories’. They argue, ‘Just as “mentoring” does not have one fixed and final meaning, there is not just one aim or purpose for mentoring’ (p.156). Bearman et al.’s (2007) view is that because mentoring involves social interactions between mentor and mentee, it will always be difficult to define. Different definitions of what ‘mentoring’ means arise because people have different ideas about how mentoring should be carried out in a variety of settings, and how mentors and mentees should relate to one another in a mentoring relationship. Within an educational context, Orland-Barak (2010, p.2) argues that practice is embedded in multiple realities, ‘at the intersection between ideologies, values, belief systems and behaviours’. These multiple realities mean different understandings of mentors and mentoring can arise (for example, from theories that individual’s hold about what knowledge is important or about how people learn best, or from their beliefs about the purpose of and the best approach to mentoring teachers at different stages in their career).

To add to the complication of different definitions, the terms ‘mentoring’ and ‘coaching’ are often used synonymously. Some researchers distinguish between the terms, suggesting that mentoring is an overarching term and coaching is one role that a mentor takes up out of many mentoring roles. For example, a coach is someone involved in coaching or training specific skills and/or supporting the replication of actions or behaviours (Kochan and Pascarelli, 2012). These different definitions and terms highlight the challenges of conceptual clarity and the potential for misunderstandings to arise between mentors and mentees when people hold different views and expectations about the roles of mentors and the purposes of mentoring. In this book, we acknowledge that terminology and meaning are contested and that people have different reasons for the terminology they choose. As Editors, we have chosen to use the terms mentor and mentoring. Our view is that mentoring is more complex than coaching, involving deeper and broader interactions between mentors and mentees in order to understand and support individual learning needs and areas for professional development.

Task 1.2 Further reflection on your understanding of a mentor and mentoring

• A selection of different definitions of mentor and mentoring are discussed below. As you read, think about what ways the definitions below are similar to or different from your own definition in Task 1.1?

Crafton and Kaiser (2011, p.106) suggest, ‘Traditionally, mentoring has meant a one-to-one relationship between a novice and expert ...’. This classic definition of a mentor is rooted in Homer’s poem, ‘The Odyssey’. Odysseus entrusted the care of his young son to Mentor because of his knowledge and expertise to guide, instruct and protect his novice protégé on his journey to manhood. This traditional definition is most closely aligned with a hierarchical model of mentoring, where a knowledgeable other/more experienced teacher is selected to support the development of novice teachers.

Mentoring is a practice where a more experienced educator (the mentor) offers support, guidance, advice and encouragement to someone who is a beginner or less experienced educator (the mentee) with the intended purpose of enhancing teaching and learning.

(Bressman et al., 2018, p.163)

This definition of a mentor is often associated with a master/apprentice approach to mentoring. This approach is underpinned by a transmission view of imparting knowledge that the mentor believes is important to a novice mentee. The mentor models behaviours which the less knowledgeable and less experienced mentee is expected to follow and replicate. The main roles of the mentor in this approach are instructor and adviser to assist the mentee in what to do. This approach to mentoring has been criticised as perpetuating the status quo as it can serve to socialise individuals into established organisational norms (Ensher et al., 2001). It is also argued that in this traditional description of mentoring, where the mentor assumes a dominant role, the power dimension could create tensions between the mentor and mentee (Awaya et al., 2003) and stifle the potential for the mentee’s active involvement in their own development as a teacher.

The master/apprentice approach to mentoring was described to me by a beginning teacher as ‘a mini-me approach’. Her perception was that her mentor expected her to follow and attempt to enact what she did in her own classroom. In a mentoring study carried out in Scotland (Livingston and Shiach, 2013, 2014), some of the primary and secondary school mentors working with newly qualified teachers said they deliberately took a master/ apprentice approach because they believed that their role as a mentor was to pass on their knowledge and experience by telling and modelling their tried and tested learning activities and teaching processes. They said they took this approach in their desire to be the best mentor to their mentee and to help them as much as possible. In the mentor preparation programme during the study, they said they realised that focusing on transferring their knowledge and experience based on what they had found worked for them was not necessarily the most helpful way to support beginning teachers in developing their own way of working with their pupils. It did not provide the mentees with opportunities to learn to take decisions for themselves about appropriate approaches to learning and teaching in their own classroom or to develop their own understanding of what it means to be a teacher.

While role-modelling and providing advice may be appropriate at specific times, Kram (1983) argues that to fully understand the nature and impact of the developing relationship between a mentor and mentee, it is necessary to examine how it changes over time. She identified different phases in the mentoring process when the types of interactions between mentor and mentee change. This changing relationship between a mentor and mentee is evident in an article written by Kochan and Trimble (2000). Trimble was mentored by Kochan and, at first, they both held the view that mentoring was a one-way approach in which the mentee is moulded by someone of greater age, wisdom or position. However, they realised that their mentoring relationship changed over time, ‘the mentor, rather than serving as a font of perfect knowledge, became a co-learner in a process of discovery.’ (p.21). The mentoring approach became collaborative with both the mentor and mentee having a role in developing each other’s learning. This co-mentoring or peer-mentoring approach adapts over time according to professional learning needs. It is a non-hierarchical approach, more reciprocal and of mutual benefit to mentor and mentee. It enables both to take an enquiring role in problem-solving, progressing knowledge and practice development in collaboration. As Le Cornu (2005, p.358) suggests, in ‘co-mentoring, both mentor and mentee are positioned as co-learners or co-constructors of knowledge’.

Co-mentoring has extended further with peer-group mentoring, which is being advocated as a model for supporting teachers’ professional development. Heikkinen, Jokinen and Tynjälä (2012, p.xv) define peer-group mentoring as,

An activity involving teachers sharing and reflecting on their experiences, discussing problems and challenges they meet in their work, listening, encouraging one another, and above all, learning from each other, and learning together.

This approach shifts mentoring from a one-directional or bi-directional approach to a multi-directional approach. It does not privilege one voice but acknowledges that the voices of all parties involved in peer-group mentoring contribute to transformative possibilities for learning and professional develo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Author biographies
• Section 1 The place of mentoring in Scottish education
• Section 2 Mentoring at each stage of a teacher’s career
• Section 3 Different facets of impactful mentoring
• Index