Mentoring and coaching in professional development

Mentoring and Coaching

Learning strong teaching skills is crucial to students looking to enter into the field of education. Part of their learning comes through experiencing lessons and actually teaching in classroom environments. This can then be augmented with professional guidance. This is essentially the aim of the program examined here. This program focuses on helping provide student teachers with better direction through methods of "support and challenge" (SchoolsWorldTV 2012). This includes providing mentors for student teachers in order to. Student teachers conduct an observed lesson and experiment, which is then gauged by the student teacher's mentor. There are a number of key focuses and findings of this program. The program really highlights the need for "focused feedback" (SchoolsWorldTV 2012). This includes mentors participating in observations of student teachers in order to provide the most detailed and efficient feedback is important. Findings show that student teachers often focus on the negative elements of their lesson, and need their mentor's support to build future confidence in their teaching abilities.

Overall, the program is successful in meeting its aims. The feedback session is a confidential discussion. This allows for a free discussion, where the student teacher can approach the mentor with issues or problems with the lesson observed. Additionally, the feedback session provides support for the student teachers, which is one of the primary aims of the program (SchoolsWorldTV 2012). The mentor can use this time to build up the confidence of the students in order to build their confidence with the classroom. Moreover, the program does focus on the details in order to really pick out both good elements and ones to improve on. The specific case shown here displays the mentor focusing on the student teacher's voice. First, he commended her, but then prompted her with an additional challenge in order to further direct her teaching skills (SchoolsWorldTV 2012). This is essentially providing the challenge that is in the overall program aim. One of the best features of this element of the program is how the feedback sessions are ending with a clear challenge that both student and mentor agree upon to meet next time. This takes an expert's opinion and turns it into advice and planning for the progression of future teacher's abilities.

Still, there are some issues here which could be improved upon. The mentors are playing two roles, formal in the classroom and more informal outside of the classroom. This could possibly lead to some issues that would decrease the overall efficiency of the program. The more formal observation in class could make the student teacher nervous, resulting in more awkward teaching. The program's effectiveness could be augmented with the incorporation of peer-conducted observations and feedback as well (Henry & Weber 2010). It would also be beneficial to follow up with student-teacher observations of the mentor while teaching, then followed by a similar feedback session where the student teacher is allowed to ask questions and make comments on the mentor's lecture and teaching performance (Henry & Weber 2010). Allowing the student teacher to ask questions about specific strategies used by the mentor will help strengthen their own skill set in the classroom beyond what the current program provides. Yet, overall, the program meets its aims, and therefore is successful in its implementation.