Reframing peer mentoring as a route for developing an educational community of practice

ABSTRACT

The benefits of peer mentoring in school settings are well-documented, however, the focus has been on the perceptions of teachers, as opposed to teaching assistants, who report distinct beliefs about their professional development. A mixed methodology was used in which 304 primary school teaching assistants completed questionnaires regarding their views of their professional development while undertaking training on a mathematics intervention for underachieving pupils. Open-ended questions elicited the perceived benefits of the peer mentoring aspect of the training. We utilized Lave and Wenger’s (1991) community of practice framework to inform the qualitative analysis and the principles of grounded theory to arrive at three themes representing the perceived benefits: an opportunity to discuss and share experiences; increased confidence; and a safe space to test teaching plans and resources. Findings were used to reframe the benefits of peer mentoring for teaching assistants undertaking intervention training, which can inform further research and future training programs.

KEYWORDS:

• Peer mentoring
• teaching assistants
• communities of practice
• intervention training

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Nick Dowrick, the Director of the Every Child Counts programs, for providing detailed information about the 1CN and 1CN2 training.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Laura J. Nicholson

Laura J. Nicholson is a Senior Research Fellow in the Faculty of Education at Edge HillUniversity. Her research interests focus on student engagement,including the factors that influence and are influenced by it,and attitudes towards learning in a variety of contexts.

Sara Rodriguez-Cuadrado

Sara Rodriguez-Cuadrado is a Lecturer in the Department of Psychologyat Edge Hill University. Her research interests encompasslanguage, perception and learning disabilities.

Clare Woolhouse

Clare Woolhouseis a Reader in the Faculty of Education at Edge Hill University. Herresearch interests revolve around identity formation, particularlygendered identity, equality, diversity and inclusion.