Reflections on Social Work Doctoral Pedagogy: A Reciprocal Approach to Enhancing Preparation for the Academy

ABSTRACT

Eleven doctoral interns and 9 faculty mentors participated in a two-year Teaching Mentorship Project (TMP). Qualitative analyses of 20 interviews and reflective writing by the interns resulted in six themes: preparation and guidance from mentors; teaching innovation; teaching rehearsal with intern peers; mentor-intern reciprocal support; teaching readiness/empowerment; and pedagogical reflexivity. Interns valued teaching empowerment, intern-mentor reciprocal support, and innovative teaching styles and methods. Mentors envisioned the essentiality of adding teaching mentorship to the doctoral curriculum to engage faculty in learning from a new perspective. Pedagogical reflections suggest that this mentor-intern joint effort be continued to cultivate a vibrant environment for promoting teaching excellence through mentored teaching and evaluation.

KEYWORDS:

• Doctoral program affirmation
• reciprocal teaching learning
• mutual accountability
• doctoral teaching internship
• empowered mentoring
• 5-way learning

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.