Section archive - Mentoring & Supervision

The present study used a delayed multiple-baseline across-participants design to analyze the effects of coaching on special education teachers’ implementation of function-based interventions with students with severe disabilities. This study also examined the extent to which teachers could generalize function-based interventions to different situations. In addition, this study examined the effects of function-based interventions on students’ problem and replacement behaviors. Results indicated a functional relationship between coaching and an increase in teacher fidelity scores. Teachers generalized the strategies to other situations with the target students.

This study examined the strategies that mentors adopted in giving actual feedback and the interns' perceptions of this feedback. Eleven participants in this study were five TESOL mentors, one Internship course instructor, and five MA student teaching interns. The mentors’ strategies included a number of strategies considered to be effective in giving intern-friendly or constructive feedback in teacher education contexts, such as the use of questions, the delivery of compliments before criticisms or specific suggestions. The findings reveal that the teaching interns’ comments seemed to indicate that they felt pleased with the feedback they received. The authors recommend that mentors pay special attention to affective factors when giving feedback to the interns to create the rapport with the latter and a favorable atmosphere for their learning.

This study was aimed to examine how cooperating teachers engaged in the supervision of student teachers conceptualised mentorship. This study also examined how cooperating teachers cognitively framed and gave meaning to their supervising role and work. Twenty distinct metaphorical concepts were found in the data. These 20 metaphors demonstrated three categories that indicated relationship issues between the cooperating teacher and the student: ‘interpersonal relationship’, ‘power sharing’ and ‘tension and conflict’. All of the metaphors found in this study centre on the concept of horizontal mentoring relationships that engender a balance of power.

This article reports on a mentoring programme in a university at the Republic of Ireland, which provides an accreditation pathway to a master’s level qualification. The authors adopted three different and complementary lenses through which to consider mentoring as an academic and professional practice: (a) the international literature; (b) their own reflective and reflexive dialogue; and (c) observations from mentor teachers’ efforts to interrogate their own professional practices. The authors conclude by arguing for productive mentoring, for sustainable change, as an academic, caring and professional practice that is contextually responsive.