Getting the practical teaching element right
share a class, needs to be seen as integral to the training team. The need for
coherent links between the practical sphere and the taught programme puts a
premium on systems ensuring regular and rich communication between the
trainees, trainer and mentor. Without strong patterns of communication there is
no guarantee that the trainees’ developing practice will be linked appropriately
with and informed by relevant theory. It cannot be assumed that trainees will
report to the trainers and their peers on issues raised in the feedback they have
received in the workplace. Tutorials will need to be carefully structured to
include the contributions of the three perspectives of trainer, mentor and
trainee.
To assist trainees in their development, robust systems for sharing records of
progress in teaching practice need to be in place to support the maintenance of
these essential links between theory and practice.
Workplace teaching practice mentors need to be selected carefully, and to be
appropriately trained in their roles. At present it is common for them to be
appointed in an ad hoc way, based mostly on the willingness of an experienced
teacher to take on the role. In a quality-assured training programme, all the key
people contributing to training should be carefully selected on the basis of the
skills, experience and dispositions needed for the job. A number of partnerships
have developed procedures for professional selection of teachers wishing to
support trainees in the workplace, based on agreed role definitions and job
descriptions. These typically combine indicators of high teaching ability, such as
consistently high grades in observations of their teaching, with testimonials from
professional colleagues and perhaps learners, and with assessment of
performance in individual and group tasks, highlighting observation of teaching
and the giving of formative feedback. Standardisation of approaches to mentor
recruitment between the partners and stakeholders can allow for procedures to
be centralised and ensure that processes are transparent. Example job
descriptions are included in Appendix 1.
In the summary of the review of research, Morton (2006) concludes:
‘The crucial role of collaborating mentor teachers should be recognised. These
teachers need to be helped to develop a whole new set of mentoring skills. It
should be recognised that being an experienced teacher does not mean that
one is necessarily a good mentor of novice teachers.'
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