How Feedback from Mentor Teachers Sustained Student Teachers through Their First Year of Teaching

ABSTRACT

This study examines how three novice teachers experienced feedback in their learning-to-teach journeys, from their yearlong student teaching experience through their first-year teaching. As student teachers, the participants received frequent, focused feedback. During their first-year teaching, they continued to desire feedback, yet had different experiences receiving it. As first-year teachers, each participant referred to feedback from their student teaching mentors, continuing to draw on this support. Findings from this study suggest (1) student teaching mentors play an important role as novices learn to teach, helping novices both be open to critical feedback and be able to utilize it to improve their instruction. Additionally, (2) though induction experiences varied, each participant valued the social aspect of learning; they wanted to talk about and through their teaching with another teacher and advocated for their own growth by seeking feedback from others.

KEYWORDS:

• Mentoring
• feedback
• student teaching

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. I use “novice” to refer to the time span including student teaching through the first-year teaching.

2. All school names are pseudonyms.

3. All names are pseudonyms.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lindsay Joseph Wexler

Lindsay Joseph Wexler is an Assistant Professor of Education at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. She centers her work around novice teacher learning. Her research focuses on ways to support novice educators during student teaching and the induction years, specifically looking at the role of mentoring in the learning to teach process.