The Changing Face of Mentorship for Preservice and Beginning Teachers

In education, it has long been understood that there are many benefits to mentoring. Unfortunately, a common training program across Alberta does not exist for mentors to professionally acquire skills to excel at their role as mentor. The literature describes a multitude of benefits to mentorship and how both a mentor and a preservice teacher would benefit from the time and practice invested in mentoring. In this capstone project, I have introduced a professional development (PD) session for the inexperienced teacher mentor that will inform and allow growth and skill development to help prepare a mentor for the challenges of mentorship with new preservice teachers in Alberta. I describe a series of steps to follow prior to accepting a student teacher to affirm personal readiness to steps to follow once working with a student teacher. These steps follow Alberta Education’s philosophy of supporting the vision of an educated Alberta 2030: Engaged Thinkers and Ethical Citizens with an Entrepreneurial Spirit include communication, relationship building (Alberta Education, 2010). This PD session will dramatically increase the level of success of partnerships between mentor and mentee and increase the professionalism and retention of teachers in education to better prepare them for the classroom. Keywords: Benefits, skills, professional development, success, partnership. The Changing Face of Mentorship vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. Cross-Curricular Competencies Alberta Education (2010)........ 6 2. High school students’ comments on 21 Century learning (p.10). 7 3. 21 Century Learner, Alberta Education 2010 13 4. Notification of PD session for fellow staff members 23 5. Characteristics of a Good Mentor, NEA 25 6. PowToon Video on Mentorship 26 7. Auto evaluation chart 27 8. Critical Feedback, University of Minnesota Mentoring Program (2013) 29 9. Critical Questions, University of Minnesota Mentoring Program (2013) 30 10. Movement chart: Expert teacher to novice mentor to expert mentor 32 The Changing Face of Mentorship 1 Chapter One Introduction Mentorship has always been a concept or act that I have been drawn to. In many aspects of my life, I have always ended up mentoring my peers, or people in one way or another. It only seemed logical that I continue with this in my profession. It seems to be working as many administrators have asked me to mentor groups of struggling, marginalized students, to new teachers to now preservice teachers who do their practicum in my school. This was an opportunity of leadership that I was looking for. Mentorship has not always been my focus. In fact, it has only truly come to light in the past 15 years. Prior to this, I was trying to find my own career path and keep up with the everyday rigors of teaching. In hindsight, if I would have personally experienced a good mentor, at the beginning of my career, I may have blossomed earlier. Learning from trial and error does not always have to occur and this is the driving force for me to embrace being a mentor and truly learn how to effectively mentor. This is no longer a new concept and has merit to be delved into for the benefit of others and not only as my own life-long education advances. My formal post-secondary education was very exciting. I left home at 18 to a new province to study whatever interested me in a new language. This, I did without support and viewed it as an adventure. Independence is a good characteristic but not everyone is an independent soul. My own abilities to forge new paths and go without support are not what I have experienced in new staff members and student teachers I have mentored over the past years. I believe that the majority of people need support and can only benefit from it – as I would have if it were readily available at that time. This interest in creating The Changing Face of Mentorship 2 a program or resource for new teachers and student teachers would meet the needs of the independent and less independent person. Throughout the process of this capstone project my ideas have migrated to be more on the development of a PD session for schools, school boards or post-secondary schools with education programs. Motivation for this subject comes from my love of teaching. No profession deserves to be left stagnant and has room for amelioration. Education has always been touted as a profession that requires life-long learning. My own life-long learning includes reflection and by writing this paper I have deeply reflected on my own teaching and best practices. Weismer and Woods (2010) state, “A primary advantage of hosting a student teacher is the resulting increased reflection on practice. Through reflection a teacher examines her or his pedagogy and the motives driving her or his planning, activities, and assessment” (p. 63). It doesn’t matter how long one has been teaching. To find new motivation is inspiring and keeps teachers in the profession. The Changing Face of Mentorship 3

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